Smoke Rising
by gwenniekate
Summary: The fire has died down & smoke rises. How do two damaged kids find their epilogue? Peeta shares what happens in those mysterious years at the end of Mockingjay: healing, growth, discovery, friendship, & love.  Spoilers. Mild suggestive themes & violence.
1. Still Intact

Welcome to this post-Mockingjay, pre-epilogue fiction guiding Katniss and Peeta through recovery, rediscovery, and newfound moments of hope! Spoilers included at no extra charge!

I have been tailoring this story for a while and have decided that it will never be perfect; so I give you what I have and hope you enjoy it anyway. Each chapter includes lyrics. I encourage you to let them inspire you... maybe make your own fanmix?

I do not claim ownership of the lyrics, credited as appropriate, nor the characters and themes of _The Hunger Games_ trilogy, which belong to Suzanne Collins.

This story is dedicated to Grandma C, who left this world today. All with love.

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><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 1: Still Intact**

"I'll be there as soon as I can.

But I'm busy mending broken

Pieces of the life I had before."

- "Unintended," Muse

The bright side of having survived two trips to the Games, torture, brainwashing, and a war is that, statistically speaking, the odds are in my favor for surviving just about anything. Of course, having survived all that, I can't say that I really want to.

And so, these past few months have been grueling.

I wake up each morning, take a couple pills, bathe and go to therapy. Then I take some more pills and have "free time" (which, for me, is usually sit-and-stare-off-into-space time) before more therapy (this time of the physical persuasion). Then it's art therapy, which was my idea. Then dinner, complete with a chaser of more pills. And bedtime, which is 60% wakefulness, 30% nightmares, and 10% full unconsciousness.

Every day it's the same. I'm going around in circles on a train through hell. It won't stop. It won't go back to the station. Just the same, burned-out engine running over the same, damaged tracks, day after day. For months, I've been stuck in this sick loop without any signs of it getting any better, and I'm alone for the ride.

The only part of the day that is remotely bearable is art therapy. For that hour, I feel like I can actually breathe. I can lose myself in the smells of sharp, earthy paint and tangy turpentine, the textures of woven canvas and soft, sable brush and plastic knife. I can let my hands work on their own for a while. But that's only as long as I don't look at what I'm painting. It always comes out awful – not in terms of artistry, but subject: arenas and war and death and a girl on fire.

The last time I saw that girl, she was in poor health and half-crazed with shell shock and grief and the weight of decisions she shouldn't have had to shoulder. I can't say I particularly trusted the woman Katniss assassinated, but Coin held enough power that Katniss should have realized that her arrow was seeking out, in addition to a human heart, a cell deep in the Capitol prison system. That's what happens when you assassinate a president.

Except now she is back home, in District 12, and I am the one locked up in the Capitol.

I've been pleading to go home. Not because Katniss is there – because who knows if I'll ever be able to sit in a room with her again, given what's happened to my brain and her psyche and our families – but because that's just it: I have no family. I am alone in the world with nothing but my doctor, my pills, and a house in District 12. Maybe I could talk with Haymitch every once in a while; I have no one to talk to here. Maybe I could bake. Something. It's like the longer I stay here, the less I know who I'm supposed to be. I don't belong here in the Capitol. And I certainly don't belong in 13. Can't I just go home?

All in good time, Dr. Aurelius says.

Before I can leave the hospital, there is therapy I must do.

We have already done some relaxation work. If I feel an episode coming on, I am now pretty good at focusing and keeping myself calm. I still don't trust my hands to not turn mutt, so I tend to get a fierce grip on something stable, but Dr. Aurelius says that's acceptable. If it's a bad episode or a strong flashback, I find a quiet corner in my mind and go to my relaxing place. It's a place I can count on, mentally - always the same, always perfect. There is a long, stone counter laid out with ten beautiful, clean layers of cake to frost. There is fondant, and food color, and frosting, meringue, whipped cream, piping bags, even silicone mats and melted sugar and an airbrush. Here, I can do anything to this cake that I desire, and no one will interrupt me. No one will hurt me. No one will die. I am at peace here. But I usually only have time to plan my cake design before the episode has passed, and I can return to reality.

Must return... It's better on the other side.

I've had relaxation down pat for a while, but it tends to leave me about as spent as an actual episode does. The difference is, after an episode, I feel mentally disoriented and violated and threatened, whereas after avoiding an episode through relaxation, I feel jaded and disgruntled, tired and confused, but still intact and somewhat secure.

So the next step was recognizing my fears and using relaxation to cope with them. We have a ladder of fears, starting at rung one and ending at rung one hundred. My fears are placed on these rungs, and I start at the bottom and climb my way up. I don't take on a new fear until I have managed those on the rungs below it. The process is like this:

Fear: Katniss in a room with me. Rung: 8. Imagine: I picture Katniss and me alone in a room. Experience: I imagine how the situation would play out – this one being rather tame, and having enough new memories of Katniss to process the scene sensibly, I imagine it would be more or less uneventful. Relax: Deep breaths, loosen my muscles, and go to my cake if I need it. Now the fear looks more like rung one. I can now move up the ladder to the next fear.

Fear: Katniss and me in a room, with a firearm at a reachable distance. Rung: 40. Imagine: I try to imagine the brightly-lit room from Rung 1, but sometimes real memories of Katniss and firearms impose, and I end up seeing Katniss and me in a dark tunnel with a gun nearby. Experience: I recognize the anxiety of the situation, but again, recent experience with Katniss leads me through the scenario sensibly. I can see that we would survive the encounter. Relax: It's stressful, but usually I don't need to retreat to the cake. I stick to deep breathing and holding onto things to keep me grounded. But I do need to run through this one for a while before we can move on.

The pattern continues as we work our way up the ladder.

Fear: Katniss and me in a room, Katniss holding the firearm, but it is not loaded. Rung: 48. Imagine. Experience. Relax.

Fear: Katniss and me in a room, Katniss holding the loaded firearm but not pointing it at me. Rung: 65. Imagine. Experience. Relax.

Fear: Katniss and me in a room, Katniss pointing the loaded firearm at me. Rung: 80. Imagine. Experience. Relax.

Fear: Katniss pointing a loaded firearm at my family. Rung: 85. Imagine. Experience. Relax.

Fear: Katniss pointing a bow and arrow at me. Rung: 90. Imagine. Experience. Relax.

Fear: Katniss and me in a room, me pointing the loaded firearm at Katniss. Rung: 100. Imagine.

Wake up shaking on Dr. Aurelius's couch.

We still need to work on that one.

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><p>The next step was recognizing my triggers.<p>

Am I worse in the cold? On stormy days? At night? Do thoughts like nightmares trigger my episodes, or does my brain take a more physical cue, like seeing something I would have seen in one of the arenas? Is blood a problem? What about my old hobbies? Thoughts of home?

This has been a difficult portion of my treatment, partly because in order to discover what triggers my episodes, I have to actually trigger some episodes. I have seen a lot of shiny memories, a lot of cruel Katnisses, a lot of dying friends and family. A lot of pristine cake.

It is also difficult because there doesn't seem to be one answer, one pattern to my triggers. Some are portions of memories breaking through my ruined brain. Some are objects, like rough bread or camera lenses. Sometimes, I can't even consciously make the connection between the trigger and my reaction. Once, I passed out after being served a salad with some sort of berry in it, and it didn't even look like nightlock. For some reason lightning can start my head pounding, my heart and breathing to quicken; and I don't even need to have flashbacks to wake up in a daze some time later.

Sleep is dangerous because my mind runs wild. It can churn out fragmented memories, trying to rebuild and repair the holes left by the Capitol. More often, it creates its own, new horrors. Things that never happened in the arena, or things I will never do to Katniss when I see her again. At least, I hope I would never do these things. But whenever I dream about them, they plague me in the wakefulness that follows. I'm only glad that while I am still at the mercy of the image of her face, broken beneath my fist ,or her body, torn by my hand, I don't have to actually see Katniss in the flesh.

Which is why the next part of my therapy is so formidable.

Dr. Aurelius believes the next step is to break down my hijacked memories and overwrite them with the truth. I won't be able to get my own memories back, but I can at least correct the misinformation. He has collected audio and video files of many of the events the Capitol used to tamper with my memory. If our theories are correct, I can experience the files, use my episode-avoidance techniques, and correct my shiny memories with factual events. The doctors back in 13 tried something like this to teach me not to kill Katniss on sight, but now we are shifting our focus from trained responses to repairing damaged memory. Dr. Aurelius says this is especially successful if I am in a suggestive state, like being deeply relaxed. I suspect it would help if I were under the influence of something, just like the Capitol used the tracker jacker venom to enhance the tainted memories, but he doesn't mention it. The hijacking disgusts me so much that I cannot consider attempting a similar process to reverse it; so it's a relief to me that it doesn't seem to be on the table.

Instead, after months in the hospital – months during which I took a thousand pills and asked to be sent home a hundred times – the doctor sends me back to District 12. He says it will give me context for my overwritten memories. He says it will help post-hijacking, post-war Peeta reunite with pre-hijacking (but still bitter, post-Games) Peeta. He says it will be good for both of us. That is, for Katniss and me.

You know. As long as we don't kill each other.

"I am on the mend

At least now I can say that I am trying

And I hope you will forget things I still lack."

- "Sowing Season (Yeah)" Brand New


	2. Full of Thorns

****Thanks for your patience waiting on this chapter. I was under-employed this summer, then over-employed this fall, we had a death in the family, we are moving, and it's the holidays. I have had the pleasure of watching my favorite fandom expand exponentially over the past couple of months, so I welcome all new THG fans and invite you to follow along!

Standard warnings: This fic is post-_Mockingjay_ and, as such, includes spoilers for the whole series. Also, Suzanne Collins owns all characters and associated material. All lyrics are credited as appropriate.

Hoping your holidays are filled with love and brotherhood! Peace be with you all!

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><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 2: Full of Thorns**

"All my stitches itch;

My prescription's low...

We used to love ourselves.

We used to love one another."

- "A Great Big White World," Marilyn Manson

When I arrive in 12, it's a bright day in early spring. The ground is still cold, but the sun is blazing, working on a thaw while white, fluffy clouds overhead seem to herald an approaching summer. I'm not sure that I am ready to see Katniss or our fallen district, so I let myself straight into my house, which has been aired out and lit up for my arrival. _By whom?_ I wonder faintly. _Should I know?_

I'm lost on what to do with myself, now that I'm here. For a long while, I stand with my hand still on the front door, wondering if I should see my neighbors or my old home, and being unable to force my hand to turn the knob again. Finally, short of ideas that don't make my heart rate speed up in anxiety, I decide to occupy my mind by attempting to take inventory of the house. I get a little mixed up whenever I try to remember exactly when I was here last, so it's best to start anew with my pantry items. Flour, spices, chocolate, it all gets boxed up while I check off replacements on an order form to send to the Capitol. I feel a pang of guilt for throwing away food that might be edible when I know this has been a hungry district, but I can't justify keeping it. It won't do anyone any good, my getting sick from ashy flour or rancid chocolate just because I 'm afraid to waste a little food. We've all suffered, here in 12, and it's not my responsibility to prevent it in the future. We have all had our battles. Even Katniss starved once. More than once.

I sigh and take the flour out of the box, open it up. It looks okay. Maybe it's usable. I place the flour on the counter to remind me to use it if I can't make myself throw it away, and I seal the box, which gets pulled next to the door to be discarded.

That done, I scour every room for items that might trigger flashbacks, so I can dispose of them or relocate them to places that won't catch me off guard. A box of bandages reminds me of the arena, and it goes in a cabinet under the downstairs bathroom. A picture I have painted, trashed. Everything that reminds me of Katniss goes in the study.

How does Katniss live in this place? This isn't the 12 she hails from; it is a ruin. Part of me says she is to blame for it being a ruin, but I think that is my hijacked side. Another part of me says she was a pawn, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, she was dragged into this at someone else's whim. But I know she agrees with my hijacked self. I tell myself I am thinking of my pantry and putting my house in order, but I am fully tuned into what's happening at her house. Greasy Sae checks in on her, makes sure she's eating, but after dinner she is gone again, and Katniss returns to bed, from where she screams for hours. I can hear it all the way from my house.

I'm only better in the fact that I don't scream through nightmares, but that is largely because I am avoiding sleep like a tracker jacker nest. Through my efforts during the day, I have lost my steam, so I sit at my kitchen table and try not to pass out. I try drawing, but I am sapped of inspiration and my hand shakes from fatigue. I resign myself to random scribbles in an attempt to stay awake.

Maybe Haymitch has it right: spend the night obliterating consciousness, spend the day sleeping it off. Not much of a life, though. It literally took a knife thrown at him to even try a temporary alternative.

I suppose I could try for a dreamless sleep. I have some sleeping pills among my collection from Dr. Aurelius. But it's about three-thirty now; if I knock myself out, I will miss my eight o'clock pills. Not to mention how close that comes to Haymitch's methods. I'm in bad shape, but I've come too far to take the easy road now.

So what to do?

I shudder at the thought of going outside, seeing the district like a fallen empire buried in its own ash, but I can actually feel myself regressing by staying shut up in the house like my two fellow victors. And so I decide to take a walk, just around the neighborhood, in the protective darkness of night. Just to wean myself out of the house and into the shock of our ruined 12. I'll have to see the town eventually, but I tell myself this is a manageable step in the right direction.

The clouds have piled up above the thawed-out earth and the air is thick with humidity. It sticks to my skin as I hit the sidewalk and turn toward the dead-end side of the neighborhood. I am surprised to find that several other houses in the Victor's Village are no longer empty. It makes sense, given that this is the only undamaged part of the district, but I can't think of who would be living there. Still, the neighborhood is only half-full. Passing house after empty house, it strikes me how magnified all the sounds from the few inhabited houses have become. Even the shuffle of my feet on the concrete sounds loud, though I'm sure Katniss could walk the same path in relative, if not total, silence.

Katniss.

Some sort of flashback threatens to distract me. I focus on my calm so quickly that I can't tell what memory I was going to be bombarded with, but the memory took place near where I stand now, and it was shiny. But not strong. I can handle it.

I take a deep breath.

Honestly, could it be any muggier? I don't remember the air in 12 ever suffocating me like this. The arena in the Quarter Quell, on the other hand . . . that was like breathing through fiberglass insulation.

The memory of the arena rushes a hot, electric sensation down my spine and I break a sweat. I'm tempted to sit down for a moment and make sure I'm calm, but something tells me that as long as I keep moving, I'll be fine.

I continue down the sidewalk to the cul-de-sac, round it, and head back up the street on the side opposite my house. My footsteps are the loudest sound, followed by some sort of rumbling from Haymitch's house, followed by the hooting of an owl. No sound from Katniss's house for a while now.

It feels bizarre to be back in 12 with Katniss when I have so few real memories of her. Quite often, I moan to Dr. Aurelius how unfair it is that I can't remember the moments she and I had together, the secrets we shared, the lies we told to each other and about each other and for each other. That's one of the hardest parts of putting myself back together; without those memories I feel like the pieces of my life have been torn apart, and some are missing. I will never be whole again.

They call what happened to me a "hijacking." It's too accurate. I know it's supposed to refer to how the Capitol took control of my mind and steered it toward their own goals. I know it's a reference to the tracker jacker venom they used to cause my fear and hallucinations. But really I feel like it describes me, before I was seized from the arena, the version of me who knew Katniss. It's like someone else borrowed my body and fought in the Hunger Games and talked with that girl and trusted her. Protected her. Loved her. And now I can hardly remember any conversations with her since before she was the Mockingjay, and if I try too hard to remember, I will only suffer an attack.

When I come around to Katniss's house, my feet drag to a stop, and I can't help staring. The porch is empty, the flower beds are neglected, and everything is coated in ash and coal dust. This is the destruction of our district, floated up and settled in the yard. This is the destruction of our lives, a pervasive reminder of fire and oppression and the blood sacrifice we have paid for whatever state of liberty we live in now. This is the destruction of our youth, a flower bed that could have been so full of color but instead is full of thorns and decay and gray soil. The poignancy of the sight brings me to my knees. I stare for a long while, then sit back on my heels, then finally lie down in the grass.

How am I going to live here? How am I going to face this, day after day? I don't want to see Katniss or the district or the ashes, no matter how lonely I felt in the hospital. I can't stay here. My family died here. My childhood home, I'm sure, no longer exists. What could I possibly do here? Open up a new bakery?

I lie in the yard, immobilized by dread, until the sky begins to pale again. A breeze touches my neck and I realize that I am damp with sweat and dew and absolutely freezing. Should I sit up? Go home?

What is that house to me, anyway? Is that fancy shell the Capitol gave me as reward for not dying in their Games really my home?

If that isn't my home... where is?

The question keeps me in place for a while, and after some time I realize that my thoughts are wandering aimlessly the way they used to just before I fell asleep. My sleeping habits in the past few months have been too hazy to say I really have any thoughts in bed.

She used to lie with me. I know that. What would she whisper in my ear in the cover of night? What did she reveal in the darkness?

In the hospital, I was often plagued by foggy dreams and semi-conscious visions of loathing Katniss, of her bones breaking under my crushing fists, her blood spilling over my shoes in little trickles of angry scarlet. They were accompanied by confusion and horror; in my dreams, a part of me always looked at the victim and cried out that I loved her. It's hard to grasp either: hurting her or loving her. I remember the little girl, and I remember the warrior; but who is Katniss?

I reach out to her through the pre-dawn gray. There are shadows of her all around.

Katniss is a girl who has to act from the heart; she can't perform on demand. She's fiercely independent, but then, I think that only because she's had to be. I do still remember her crouching in the rain behind the bakery. She was willing to die for me. Even more than that for her sister. She learned hunting and trading to keep her alive. She took on two Games and a full-scale military maneuver out of love for her little sister. My brothers didn't love me half that much.

And just like that, all I can think of is Prim. That poor, little girl caught in the middle of a big, ruthless war. Destroyed. Her death a mere byproduct of strategic warfare. Her life a pawn willingly sacrificed. And her devoted big sister is left with the burden of the war, the emptiness of her death, and nightmares that wont quit.

I don't know when I make the decision, but at some point my feet start carrying me again, to my basement, down the sidewalk, skirting town as best I can to make it to the woods without facing the devastation. An hour or two later, the sun is back, trying to usher in an early summer, and I'm digging in Katniss's flower beds. Part of me wants to ask her permission before I start changing her property, but the other part of me knows that that's impossible. She wouldn't answer the door, or she would tell me to go away without waiting for my question, or she would think I only wanted recognition for what I was trying to do. But deep down, I think she'll appreciate the evening primroses, and Prim deserves a little remembrance.

To tell the truth, it's great therapy, digging in the flower bed. The solid feeling of the shovel in my hands, the scrape of the blade through packed dirt, the heft of blackened earth still wet with dew – it somehow reminds me of painting on canvas. Even the smells make me feel more alive and more sane. I'm fatigued but focused. Dirty but driven.

I've got three holes and one shrub in the ground before I hear noise inside the house. A moment later, Katniss emerges from the house and rushes up to me like there's fire at her heels. I take a long moment to pat down dirt without looking at her. A mutt Katniss lurks in my mind's eye, so I grip the shovel a little more tightly and focus on my work. It helps. I think I can look at her without freaking out, but it's been months; and in fact, the last time that I saw her, she had a bow in her hands (old rung 90, if you recall). So I finish planting the shrub, take a breath, and look up with as neutral an expression as I can manage.

The good news is that the sight doesn't even hint of mutt. The bad news is it almost knocks me on my back anyway.

The girl is standing there, complexion still mottled from sleep and mouth agape, staring wildly at me and my load of flowers with a tangle of black hair crowning what can only be described as a mess. Her clothes have obviously been slept in... and eaten in... for more than a day or two. Her wrists, which have always been skinny, are even bonier. They cross defensively over her chest and the impression is that of a skull and cross-bones. I'm actually more shocked by how wretched she looks than by the Big Reunion we are having here in her yard.

We exchange a few words. I do pretty well until she asks about my task. I knew I should have asked for her permission. And how do I mention that they are in remembrance of her dead sister? We haven't spoken since Prim's death, unless you count the impromptu voting session in Coin's office, which I still don't think I understand. And anyway, whatever talking went on in there wasn't exactly between Katniss and me.

"For her," is the best I can offer by way of explanation. Then, to make it seem less like I decided to alter Katniss's property without her consent or knowledge, I tell her that I thought we could plant the flowers here. _We_.

For a moment, she eyes the flowers and flushes red. But then she blinks at me a couple times, goes a little pale, tosses me a curt nod, then retreats into the house again.

It's such a quick exit, it worries me. Does she think I am going to try to kill her? God, I hope not. Granted, it happened once. But that was a long time ago, really. I've been in therapy for months to condition that urge out of me. And I did pretty well working with her on the mission in the Capitol, considering.

Maybe she just doesn't want to see me. I assume the nod was permission to continue with the planting, but I make up my mind to get my job done and get out of her way.

As I rush to get the remaining primroses in the ground, I hear Katniss thumping up and down the stairs and water come on. The thought of running water makes the layer of dust and ash and sweat on my skin feel like a disease. A shower sounds so good I can barely make myself finish the gardening job. I force myself to pull the cart and tools to my back door, but I've become so obsessed with thoughts of bathing that I abandon them there.

It's my first shower since leaving the Capitol, and it smells so normal I almost weep with the relief of it. There's a lot I'm washing off, really. Not just the grime but the Capitol and the hospital and the war. It all washes down the drain in a brackish swirl. District 12 washes over me and into me, and by the time I'm dried and dressed, I'm a new man.

I've ruined my circadian rhythm by staying up all night. I feel like I could probably sleep all day and all night, too, but I finally feel like doing things the right way, the normal way. So I decide to do whatever I can to get through the day and go to bed just as soon as I take my night dose of pills. While I'm surveying a cookbook I'd brought from my parents' house before the Quarter Quell – and unwittingly saved from a fiery end, I think grimly – there comes a noise I haven't heard in a while.

Ring-ring. Ring-ring.

It's the phone; I realize that much. Would Dr. Aurelius be calling so soon? It was only yesterday that I left.

Ring-ring. Ring-ring.

"Hello?"

"Oh, Peeta, heaven bless you for answering. This is Katniss's mother. She doesn't answer her phone, and it seems Haymitch has been 'disconnected' again."

"Oh, hi, Mrs. Everdeen," I reply with a smile in my voice.

"I tried your line just on the off-chance that someone would answer. So you're back in the district now, huh? That's just wonderful. How are you, son? Have you seen Katniss yet?" I get the eerie feeling that I am participating in a conversation telepathically, because I haven't answered any of her questions, yet Mrs. Everdeen barrels ahead. "I try calling her, but it's no use. Usually it just rings and rings. I never hear anything. Tell me, is she doing okay?"

"Better," I say, even though I have very little empirical evidence to base this on.

"Good; oh, I'm so glad. That's due to you, I'm sure. Of course it is. It always helps to have someone you really care for around. Haymitch has done his share, truly, and we all know he has his own issues, hasn't he? But he's just not close to her the way you are. I know it's hard being alone..." At this, Mrs. Everdeen seems to lose the momentum of her one-sided conversation, and she falters. "Is she... ah, would you say that she is lonely there?"

A direct answer would be too much. "I'd say we all are," I tell her.

The line is quiet for a moment.

"Well, I have some patients to check on. Just wanted to see how my daughter is doing." Her voice has lost its vigor and instead taken on a rough strain. Haltingly, she says, "Thank you again for picking up, Peeta. You two take care of each other."

"Yes, ma'am," I say, and then there is a click.

I blink at the phone for a moment. Two minutes ago, I was looking at a cookbook. Now I have had an entire conversation with Mrs. Everdeen. I think. I didn't say enough to have had a conversation, did I? I hang up the phone and, feeling a little confused, return to the recipes.

I make it through the day, one menial task at a time, until the sun sinks low enough in the sky for me to decide it's evening. I take my pills, climb the stairs, and get almost completely undressed before sleep takes me.

In the morning, I'm up early, and I feel better than I remember feeling in almost a year. The bed feels fantastic. The shower is refreshing. I'm famished, for the first time since the Mockingjay Mission.

I've been working in the kitchen and putting the house in order for a few hours until I hear a knock.

"You hungry?" Greasy Sae grunts when I open the door. She skips right past the awkward acknowledgment that I have just returned from a mental hospital and goes right for the literal gut.

"I was just about to get some bread out of the oven," I tell her.

"C'mon, then." Sae waits while I wrap up the hot loaf, turns on her heel, and starts bustling over to Katniss's.

Just like everything else this morning, the hot food is perfect. I'm already halfway through my eggs and bacon when the girl herself plods down the stairs, both looking and smelling vastly better than she did yesterday. Without a word, Sae puts a full plate down across from mine, and without a word, Katniss takes her seat. The lack of conversation becomes painfully obvious, and several minutes pass while I watch the woman washing the dishes and the younger woman vacantly consuming eggs.

It could be my imagination, but it seems like Katniss has been crying. Does she do that often? Has she been crying all these months?

Her cat hops up on the table and sulks at Katniss's plate. She holds out a bacon rind, which he devours in with an unappetizing, snuffly sort of noise. It makes me want to pass on my eggs until I see a little smile in the crook of her mouth. The breakfast table seems a little brighter then, and I forget about the cat.

I don't know how long my good mood will last, so I'm tempted to go and look at the district while I'm able, but I don't think I should go alone – if depression didn't consume me, an episode could leave me stranded in the rubble – and it doesn't look like today is a good day for Katniss to run the errand. Instead, I post my supply order, put away the wheelbarrow from yesterday, and climb the stairs. I go into the second bedroom, which is furnished and made up although no one has ever slept here, and there, on the high shelf in the closet, is the box. I pull it down, taking care not to spill its contents.

It's therapy, I tell myself, digging through the box. It may feel like pain now, but this is healing me. The little envelope lies at the bottom, untouched but unforgotten. Clutching it to my chest, I bring it down to the study, shut the door, and take a seat.

As evening approaches, another door opens.

The mess I'm expecting isn't there, probably due to the same invisible housekeeper who aired out my house this week. But commingled with the scent of disinfectant is the familiar tang of liquor. I head straight for the table between the living room and kitchen.

"Haymitch," I say loudly, nudging the snoring mass slumped against the table. There is, of course no answer; I know how to rouse Haymitch from his drink, but I don't feel like making the effort just now. Instead, I pull out another chair and take a seat.

Now, here is a man who knows loss. He has no one, nothing but this Village and the people in it, and I suspect that he's not even strongly attached to these. He certainly seems miserable enough. Is this what District 12 does to people? Ruins their hair and skin, drives them to poor hygiene and malnutrition? The scent coming off this man is indescribably pungent.

The snoring continues for another half hour or so, during which I find it hard to think of anything but how disgusting the sight before me is. But finally there is a belch, followed by the smack of dry lips, and Haymitch wearily pulls his head off the table. He looks around, bleary-eyed, for a while. Though he looks right at me, he gives no sign that he has registered my presence at all. Scratching his beard, he catches sight of a tumbler on the table, grasps it and peers inside. There is a splash of what looks like dirty water at the bottom, which must appear more appetizing to Haymitch, for he tosses back his head and downs the swill. I swallow back my urge to gag and remain silent while he rubs his eyes vigorously and clears the liquor from his lips with the back of his hand.

"Well," he says at last, his gaze squarely meeting mine, "I knew eventually I'd have to look at your pretty-boy face again."

"When the violence causes silence

We must be mistaken ...

What's in your head, in your head?

Zombie"

- "Zombie," The Cranberries


	3. A Moment of Peace

A new chapter! Who's excited about the movie promos gearing up? I have been seeing some great merchandise (finally!) and tickets become available Feb. 22nd, so I am just beside myself. :) The fire is really catching, too... just about everyone I know has at least considered reading the books, and many have read them already!

Standard disclaimers apply: Suzanne Collins is the one who deserves all your love and adoration. All characters and associated material belong to her. Lyrics are credited where appropriate. Thank you for reading!

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><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 3: A Moment of Peace**

"There are places I'll remember

All my life, though some have changed,

Some forever, not for better,

Some have gone and some remain."

- "In My Life," The Beatles

It's been a few weeks now since I arrived back in 12. I keep waiting to wake up in the morning feeling like I know what to do with myself, but no such feeling comes. Generally I wake up before dawn and start some bread. Depending on how Katniss is feeling, I either hear her make her way toward town en route to a hunt, or I hear no noise in her direction at all. While my dough rises or my day's recipe is in the oven, I bathe and dress for the day. Once the bread is out of the oven, I know where I stand on breakfast: if Katniss hasn't gone to hunt, Sae is at my door with an invitation to join them.

I frustrate myself with this little mystery: I can't tell when it is that Katniss likes to hunt. The first morning that I heard her creak down her front steps in the darkness, I thought, "Oh, good. She's feeling better." But when I stopped by later to ask if she needed me to take anything to post at the train station, she looked so stormy I nearly forgot why I had knocked on her door. On the other hand, a week later a similar thing happened, except the girl at the door was fresh-faced and upbeat.

I thought for a while that perhaps she liked to hunt on her bad days, letting the fresh air and invigorating hunt lift her spirits. This, at least, would explain why she either came home refreshed or distressed – either the hunt helped or it didn't. But breakfasts on her mornings at home were doleful, too. If she were having a bad day, why wouldn't she give hunting a shot to cheer her up? And furthermore, there are mornings when I swear I can hear her whistle as she leaves the Village.

There have been several occasions on which she has brought me a gift from her foray into the woods, and she has been in a good mood, with color in her cheeks, each time. Usually she has found some herb or berry she thinks I could use. Once it was a squirrel. I was surprised she thought of bringing me, instead of Sae, the meat – most of the meaty dinners have been under Sae's knife and ladle – but it brought forward a collection of memories about Katniss's meats on my plate, and while the memories were unexpected, they were also perfectly untouched. Whole, un-shiny Katniss memories! I took the squirrel with a smile so wide, I think I scared the girl with the weapons strapped all over.

The mornings when I get to have breakfast at her house are a guilty pleasure of mine. Part of me would rather she go hunting, go give herself a chance at a good day, but another part of me just wants to see her.

First of all, the more time we spend together, the less I feel like I might suddenly try to hurt her. Despite my nightmares never growing short on different ways to hurt, torture, or kill her, spending time with the real Katniss helps solidify the distinction between the mutt Katniss in my dreams and the former Mockingjay in her pajamas. No matter how many times I drown her, poison her, trap her, or burn her, there will still come a morning on which she and I sit at her table, quietly chewing on my freshly baked bread.

But secondly - and this is something I am still coming to terms with myself - I really enjoy observing her. Even though half the time we don't talk. She seems to enjoy hearty breads over pastries, cheeses over herbs, fruits over grains. She doesn't always get dressed before coming downstairs, but her hair is always braided. Sometimes she plays with the end of her braid rather than make eye contact with anyone. Sometimes she looks Sae and me right in the eye but says nothing. And sometimes she is alert and cleaned up and conversational, but her body just seems to sag a little bit. Oh, the many moods of Katniss.

The biggest reason I like breakfast mornings is because, when Katniss is out hunting instead, I don't know what to do with myself. This has been an ongoing issue since I came back to the district, and it really hasn't gotten any better. Haymitch says I should go ahead and see the town, get it over with, and I know he's right, but I just can't make myself go down there.

Why is that? I've seen kids kill each other and watched warfare from the front lines. It should not be such a big deal to take a look at an old ruin. And honestly, I don't know that it would be a big deal. But I don't know that it wouldn't.

If I go alone, I could have an attack, fall unconscious, and be exposed to the weather all night. Haymitch won't go with me – he swears he won't leave his house until there is something worth celebrating or, alternatively, a shortage of liquor – and we don't expect either very soon. All things considered, he's the only one I would want to "take the tour" with. He would keep me from getting too sentimental, and if I did pass out, he would probably be able to drag me home. I shudder to think of myself losing control like that in front of Katniss, ignoring the fact that I could go mutt on her out there... And Greasy Sae? As if she doesn't have enough on her hands already.

I'm sure I'll see the District eventually...

In the meantime, I have mostly been painting. I've found it's not so bad when I don't look at it when I'm done. I just paint, paint, and put it away. I feel bad doing that to canvas, so I've taken to painting on wooden boards, chunks of plaster, or whatever is stored down in the basement. I'll paint on the backs of other pictures. I painted some sort of old basket that was full of dead weeds. It feels cleansing, as though I'm sharing a secret or setting down a great weight. I just let my hands feel out the picture and look at it in a detached way until I'm done for the day, then I pull my eyes off what I have created, turn it away from myself, carry it back to the basement, and go get cleaned up. I try not to guess what I've painted, try not to notice how much black I've used, or red. I try to think about other things instead, like what I need to order or if I've heard Katniss come home or Haymitch wake up, or how lucky I am to be alive.

It's a foggy morning that makes me feel sluggish. I've made a quickbread rather than something that needs my attention, and I'll be eating it alone, as I can hear Katniss's front door shut and her boots trip down her walk. But then there is a rap at my door.

"Morning," she says with a nod when I answer. "You busy?"

"No," I reply. "My breakfast is out of the oven. Would you like some?"

She blinks. "Oh. Well, I would, except I'm on my way out." She gestures over her shoulder in the direction of town, and I can see her arrows strapped to her back. They tip a little something on my anxiety scale.

"You could take some with you if you want," I offer, realizing a little late that I haven't invited her in yet. "Come in, I'll cut you a slice."

Katniss sways forward as if about to follow me to the kitchen, but her feet stay rooted to my front stoop. "Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to come with me." Her eyes are all over, roaming past the staircase into my living room and edging toward the kitchen. They stop when they reach my face, and she raises her eyebrows. "To the woods? I thought you might like to see the herbs growing wild."

I try not to frown, but I have to consider the offer a minute.

I'd like to see the sources of the wild carrot and watercress she's brought, see if I can recognize anything else growing so nearby. I'd like to see what mysteriously brings Katniss home in these moods. A little burst of fantasy shines on me, a vision of Katniss and me eating in the shade of some evergreens, and I really want to go.

But with my clunky gait, she would get no hunting done. And, for that matter, she would be running around with bow and arrow in hand, a scenario which, I remember glumly, I spent many hours in therapy learning to simply imagine without panicking. No, I don't think joining Katniss on a hunt would be a good idea.

"Okay," she says, stuffing her hands into her jacket pockets, "what about just a walk around town? You haven't seen it yet, have you?"

I admit that I have not.

"Can you leave your bow and arrows behind?" I ask cautiously. She smiles, pulls her gear over her shoulder, and lays it gently beside my door.

By the time I have my boots on, Katniss is waiting by my door with a couple of slices of bread in her hands. We eat our breakfast as we leave the Village, Katniss walking comfortably in the lead, my uncertain steps clomping in her wake. Dust swirls up over my boots as we go, giving the cartoonish effect of a cloud trailing behind our little parade.

"It doesn't bother you?" I ask, trying to ignore the smothered feeling in my chest.

Katniss glances over her shoulder at me. Her forehead creases a little. "I don't let it bother me anymore."

That's right. She must walk this way almost every day. In fact, I'm pretty sure I remember that she visited 12 a couple of times during the rebellion. I want to ask her how she got over the shock, but I'm not sure that she has. She is still not exactly playing with a full deck from day to day. Besides, today she is in a good mood, and I don't want to ruin it.

She hesitates as we reach a fork in the road, then takes the branch that should lead straight into town. At least, it would if we weren't now standing in the middle of the largest pile of rubble I have ever seen. Broken pavement, charred brick, twisted metal is all that remains of this place. Ash and dust, ash and dust. It's so unrecognizable, I have trouble understanding when Katniss stops and looks at me with concern. I glance around and find nothing but a post. _The whipping post_, I realize. And I remember. Gale's wrists tied up, his body hanging loose and unconscious. And blood, so much blood. And Katniss there to see it all, horror dripping from her face with every drop of blood from his back. For some reason, it starts up a flashback from the sewers under the Capitol, and I feel myself slipping away to somewhere dark and damp and red.

_No._ I shake myself._ I will not lose control out here_. _This is no war. This is a moment of peace. Get a grip. _And after a few deep breaths, I can feel my hands on my knees, and my eyes open up again. Katniss's boots are right in front of me. I look up into her worried face.

"I'm okay," I try to say, but nothing comes out. She doesn't move, afraid to touch me, I guess, until several moments pass and I can straighten up again.

"I just remembered…" I begin, but my sentence dies there. Katniss nods.

"Gale's whipping," she says without as much sadness as I expect. She looks at the post again, then at me, then to the rubble to our side.

"How is Gale?" I know I'm pressing my luck, but I have to ask.

"Fine, I hear."

Since she doesn't offer more, instead staring intently at what used to be a building, I let the subject drop and follow her gaze. Behind the usual collapsed wall stretches an expanse of mortar, brick, tile and ash about twenty paces wide and thirty deep. About halfway back, on one side, the tile disappears into a pile of charred wood. At the back I spot a big slump of metal, and then I see it: our oven, our stairs, the service counter…. This is my house. I mean, it used to be. It's not a house at all anymore.

I stare at the rubble for a long time. As I look around, I recognize more and more remnants of the bakery or even our family space, which now occupies the same floor. I think, for instance, that I can recognize our copper meringue bowl and perhaps part of a bed frame. I stare until my knee aches from standing still for so long, but I feel nothing.

Nothing at all.

Shouldn't I feel grief? Anger? Whether my family was here or anywhere else in the square, there is no doubt they burned to ash with the rest of it. Shouldn't that turn my stomach? I spent my childhood in this spot, and look at it now. Why do I not mind?

I look at Katniss to see if she has noticed my complete lack of emotion. Her face is a little pink, but she betrays nothing. Still focused on that old slump of metal in the back, she slips her hand into mine.

"You ready to go?" she murmurs.

"I think I left here a long time ago," I say.

We see the rest of the town before passing through the Seam. Katniss lets me do all the talking as we go. Here is what's left of the school we attended. Here is where the Justice Building used to be. Katniss listens patiently when I tell her that I can recognize where Celie Beeman's house once was, and then I have to explain that Celie was my girlfriend for a month or two a few years ago. I'm a little embarrassed to talk about her, but she's gone now… It's not right to just ignore her memory.

When we get to the fence, where the chain link has been snipped and rolled back to admit a huntress and perhaps her guest, Katniss finally speaks, pausing to reassure me that she won't be hunting with me in tow. We are just continuing our walk.

By the time we stop for lunch, the sun is high and hot. Katniss has brought some roasted meat and a hunk of the bread I made for breakfast and a jug of water, which is welcome after all the walking. She must have planned on asking me along, because there is plenty of meat. To finish up the meal, Katniss shows me where she finds berries. She plucks a few, hands them to me, but just before I put them in my mouth I stop to take a second look at them. Just elderberries. Though I quickly look up again, Katniss has seen my double-take. The laughter that follows is warm and relaxing and lasts a little longer than seems entirely sane, but we don't mind. We're not the sane type anymore, anyway.

After lunch we take a sort of botany tour of the woods, and Katniss sighs that she should have brought her family plant book, in which I still have some illustrations to add. So we snip a few specimens as well as some wild herbs for my kitchen, and we head home.

Walking back, we talk easily about the weather and the exercise and the state of everything. I'm impressed, not just with how well we're getting along, but with how relaxed Katniss seems, despite everything. I'm impressed with myself for getting through it all without a breakdown, despite several good opportunities. And I'm impressed with the natural resources available just across the fence, which gives me an idea.

Katniss retrieves her bow and arrows from my front stoop and says goodbye. I pull a catalog to my table and start picking seeds and bulbs to order. If sweet berries can grow wild in the woods, imagine what I can grow in my backyard! And besides, I really could use something to fill up all this free time.

"Now I'm here looking through the rubble,

Trying to find out who we were.

Last time I was here, it was raining.

It ain't raining anymore...

Your eyes were filled with terror and tears watching the door,

As the stars exploded with gunfire,

I saw you smiling just before."

- "Dirty Rain," Ryan Adams


	4. Reaping Day

In honor of The Hunger Games advance tickets going on sale today_, _I give you a new chapter! I really appreciate all the feedback you guys have been giving me. My heart is yours!

Speaking of which, the characters and associated material herein are Suzanne Collins's. The lyrics are credited as appropriate.

Thank you for reading!

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><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 4: Reaping Day**

"I told you I would return

When the robin makes its nest

But I ain't never coming back."

- "Butterfly," Weezer

It was dark and calm and golden, the start of a beautiful spring day. My brothers and I were up before dawn, as usual, but Broa propped open the back door to the bakery so we could enjoy the morning as we worked. Our shop wouldn't be officially open until after the reaping, but lots of families liked to celebrate their good luck with a good meal, so we had to have loaves and cookies and a few cakes ready for the fortunate ones.

Broa was old enough that he wasn't sweating bullets, but Filo and I kept having to wipe our foreheads with shaking hands as we worked.

I knew it was worse in the Seam. Kids there took tesserae as a matter of ironic survival. Without the grain, they and their families would starve. We didn't need it; we had plenty of stale bread on the table. But my mother wanted to be safe.

What if there were a shortage? She would ask. What if the trains got tied up somewhere?

She wanted enough surplus grain to stock our bakery in case of an emergency. Never mind that it was a totally different quality of grain than what we used in our pastries. She wanted the surplus, so we signed up for the tesserae.

Though it was rare, we weren't the only townies with tesserae. My best friend, Lyle Ruttledge, started taking tesserae that year because all three of his younger siblings had hit a growth spurt and were eating twice what they had the year before. His mother cried for a week, but Lyle understood the necessity. At least someone would be eating that grain.

No one ate ours, no one talked about it, and nobody but us knew about it.

"What d'you suppose she'll make us wear?" Filo asked me, brushing some hair out of his eyes with the back of a floury hand. His hair was the same color as mine, but straighter, and he styled it differently. Girls at school were always trying to run their hands through it.

"Not the suits like last time, I hope," I told him. "We almost passed out of heat stroke."

We would have laughed if we weren't so tense. My mother had certain ideas about presentability that few matched.

"If I were you, Fil, I'd just wear a big bull's-eye," teased Broa. "Wear it all the way into the arena and give 'em a heads-up."

It was true: Filo was the least muscled of us, but Broa was a pretty big guy. I wouldn't have wished him a spot in the Games, but I would have placed a heavy bet on him had he gone. Over six feet of dense muscle. And dark, curly hair that really stuck out on our family tree, like a red rose on a bush of white blossoms. If he hadn't gotten Pop's unfortunate ears, and if my mother had been capable of such a passion, I would have suspected Broa's legitimacy.

Filo managed a laugh at the dig, but the clatter of his rolling pin across the floor betrayed his nerves, and that was the end of the peaceful morning.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, Ma," Broa called up the stairs.

"You boys aren't throwing food around, are you?"

"No, Ma," we answered together.

"You aren't sneaking tastes, are you?"

"No, Ma."

We finished our work in silence.

Pop came downstairs at his usual time to work on our specialties while Broa sliced, Filo glazed, and I frosted. He slipped Filo and me a couple cookies each, wrapped in paper so our mother wouldn't see. Pop always gave cookies to the district kids, and our mother hated that, but she allowed him the excuse that cookies calmed kids, and calm kids made happy customers of their parents. He was especially generous on Reaping Day, which was one of the few days of the year my brothers and I received fresh cookies. Of course, I never had the appetite for mine until the evening, and so I slipped the treats into the fold of my apron.

At first light there was a subtle scrape at the back door, which Pop answered discreetly. Filo shot me a look when Gale Hawthorne stepped inside, but I hadn't been surprised by his appearance. With no conversation I could hear, Pop slid something into the chiller then chose a loaf from Broa's counter. The boy left as quietly as he came, and work resumed as if uninterrupted.

Having finished our morning duties in the bakery, the four of us returned upstairs for breakfast: eggs and stewed fruit. Broa ate heartily, but Filo had a little trouble, I noticed. I seemed to have unwittingly swallowed one of Broa's socks, because there was a large and unpleasant lump in my throat making it difficult to get the breakfast down. My mother reminded me several times that I should eat more quickly, but since I managed not to waste any of my portions, I escaped the punishing jab of a fork. After breakfast, Filo washed and I dried.

Broa's girlfriend, Tawny, came over while Filo and I were getting ready for the reaping.

"Are you guys nervous?" she asked from her perch on Broa's bed. Like our brother, she was past the age of concern.

"Just a bit," Filo laughed weakly, peering into the mirror as he combed his hair again and again. "But the odds are in my favor. Or so I hear."

He was right, of course. We had taken a few tesserae, but we were still in good shape compared to most of the kids from the Seam. And there were so many Seam names in the bowl. But it only took one entry to be drawn.

When the time came, Filo and I tromped out to the Square and allowed ourselves to be corralled with our classmates. Since our walk to the Square was so short, we arrived early. It was a beautiful day, which was both a blessing and a waste. Rainy reapings were the worst, but it was hard to enjoy sunshine when you or someone you knew might be sent off to the Games at any moment. My peers and I had no shade to speak of, and beads of sweat broke out on my neck. The crowd was already large enough that I couldn't see Filo anymore through all the bodies, even over the sea of black hair, blond hair, all kinds equal under the pink-lacquered fingers of Effie Trinket, who was tutting over us all in preparation for her big moment.

The Reaping.

It began like any other. Effie's bubbly speech, her presentation of the glass bowls filled with our entries, Haymitch Abernathy's drunken stupor. But when the first name was drawn, everything changed.

My first reaction was actually one of relief.

_Thank God_, I thought. _It's not her._ Just like every year. Of course it's not her. I always get so nervous, and it's never what I fear.

I would have gone on believing that the Reapings weren't so bad, if the volunteering hadn't taken place. Of course, now that is everyone else's favorite moment – the first glimpse of the Mockingjay – but for me it was true horror. Lightheaded, I tried to grasp what had happened. She had escaped the nightmare only to rush into it headlong! By the time my name was drawn, I was already numb with disbelief. I barely heard Effie call me up.

I took my place on stage, wondering how long we would get for good-byes; sisters that close would never get enough time for good-bye. Before the anthem played, we were made to shake hands. How painful, how wonderful to have her strong, little fingers clasped in mine! My grip spasmed a bit at the bittersweetness of her touch after all those years. The flash of her eyes told me the spasm did not go unnoticed.

After the ceremony, we were ushered into holding rooms to say our goodbyes. Mine was stuffy, filled with plush furniture. The inside of a coffin. My brothers, my parents, even Tawny filed in and took seats around me.

"Rotten luck, Peet," said Broa, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder. Tawny cried quietly. Filo, watching me closely with a severe frown creasing his face, said nothing.

"Well I, for one, am encouraged," clucked my mother to herself, smoothing her lively cotton skirt around her knees. "We may actually see a tribute home this year. She's a fighter, that one. Not one for manners, and only souls know if there's any sense in that dark head, but it's been so long since our tributes had any hope."

Stunned into silence, the rest of us let several moments pass under the sting of my mother's words. Tawny had a little trouble keeping her sobs down after that, so she and Broa excused themselves.

A few more moments passed, with little encouragement, until Pop spoke up. "I'd like a moment with my boy," he said, and we were left alone.

"I may not be the best father, Peeta," he began. "But I love you, and I've always tried to take an interest in everything that has ever been important to you. I like to think I know you pretty well, son. And that's why I'm pretty sure this is the last time I'll get to see you."

I fixed my gaze out the window, steeling myself against my father's apparent lack of faith in me. I expected it from my mother, but Pop?

"I just wanted you to know a couple things before you go," Pop continued. "First, I love you, son, and I know I have failed you time and time again. I beg your forgiveness for that."

The last thing I wanted was to have my father clear his conscience with me before I marched off to what my family apparently viewed as my certain death, but as their assumption that I would not be returning home was more than likely correct, I couldn't deny Pop his peace of mind. Never meeting his eyes, I nodded.

"Second, I want you to consider not giving up."

There were a couple short, wiry hairs on the floor, and I thought maybe they were dog hairs. What did this room get used for the other 364 days of the year? Fancy afternoon teas for visiting officials who brought their pets? Or did the dog visit one of last year's tributes? How many had gathered around to say goodbye as my father was doing?

"I know how you feel about her, Peeta."

I frowned at the floor. Pop thought I would give up in the Games to avoid coming home to my hateful mother? Like a passive suicide? But before I could protest, he repeated:

"I know how you feel about the Everdeen girl."

And, against my will, I looked my father dead in the eye.

_He knew?_ With a jolt, I recalled Filo's concerned glance when Gale Hawthorne had stepped into the bakery that morning. Suddenly, a flood of little moments washed over me – a look from my father, or an opportunity for a jibe from Fil – dozens of moments that I should have realized meant they _knew_. Yet I had never noticed. Years of carefully avoiding ever mentioning her name, years of hiding dandelions in my pockets... ever since my brothers had found that crayoned picture of a little blond head and a black pigtailed one and had teased me mercilessly until I crammed my tear-soggy crayons into the vent under the sofa. I wore those bruises for months and vowed never to let my brothers know about my crush on Katniss. It had been a melodramatic reaction for a six-year-old, and not even I could have guessed how long the crush would last or how long I would have to keep my silence.

But, apparently, it had all been for nought. "Everyone knows?" I gasped, burying my face in my hands. How embarrassing. How mortifying! They knew how I felt about her, and here I was supposed to go up against her in the Games? _I want you to consider not giving up._ I groaned. I hadn't even thought that far ahead yet; I was too busy catching up with the present to start making plans for the future. My father overestimated my decency.

He was answering me, I realized. "... Filo, I think. Maybe Broa, but not your mother."

No, of course my mother didn't know. She would have let us all know exactly how she felt about that.

_Oh, souls, she was going to see us on TV! _I began to picture what our Games would look like to the viewers at home. I would be slaughtered in some barren waste. I might not even survive the first day. Katniss would... she had real skill and more survival instinct than anyone I knew. But she was no match for the Careers in size, strength, or sponsorship.

My head was pounding. Was it really going to be like this, then? Both of us dead in the arena, and not a damn thing we could do about it? I hadn't ever had the chance to talk to her, even!

"You don't have to kill her to survive, you know," my father derailed my train of thought with a thick tongue.

The truth was that I couldn't imagine I would survive. Perhaps my death would even help keep her alive, help improve her odds. Yes, I had enough control of the situation to manage that. I needn't worry about being put in the position to kill her; I wouldn't last long enough for it to matter. I imagined telling my father as much, but the words stuck in my throat.

"You could help her," he offered, and I burst.

"Help her?" I cried. "Against 22 tributes? Some trained for success, experts in war, all set on being the last one standing? I have no chance! The best I can do is take down some tributes on my way out." My voice pitched as I wiped at my face, hot tears spilling over now. "I don't want to kill anyone, Pop. Not her... not anyone."  
>"You don't have to protect her against 22 tributes." Pop's voice was level and quiet, in stark contrast to mine. "You just have to stay vigilant and not give up. Something tells me she's capable of protecting herself, anyway. She is so like her father." He swallowed loudly, then. "The longer you are on her side, the better chance she has of coming home. But, Peeta, if someone else gets her..." He trailed off. His little plea about not giving up made a refrain in my head. I nodded.<p>

Pop closed me into a hug that made my ribs creak, and when I heard a little moan of sorrow escape him, I couldn't hold back the sobs that tore from me

There was a knock at the door and Lyle's voice joined several others in the hall. Friends lining up to say good bye. Pop pulled away and wiped a lone, tell-tale trail from his cheek with his apron while I tried in vain to dry my tears with my palms. He straightened up.

"Here, Pop," I lisped suddenly, reaching into my jacket pocket. I pulled out the little paper parcel I'd been saving for after the Reaping and handed it to him. "Thank you."

My father took my cookies, shook my damp hand, and left.

* * *

><p>After seeing the district and coming home to those straggly bushes in Katniss's flower beds, it all clicked. Planting those primroses was the first thing that made sense in this place, and now working the earth is one of the most gratifying parts of my day. But I have no experience with this sort of thing, and it can be slow going – it's already late spring and I only have half my garden planted. I decided on an edible garden, even though it's confined to my planters and I had to order soil boosters, but there is something so appealing about making my planters beautiful and functional at the same time. I love the wide, bright foliage of sweet potatoes, so those were the first in the ground. Next, I seeded a cluster of pots with basil, sage, chives and thyme - these live by my back door so I can bring them in if I want. This week my planter got carrots, red cabbage, strawberries, and tomatoes. After I get my plum tree in the front yard, I'll begin on Katniss's.<p>

I'm digging now, hoping to get some work done before the sun gets too high and I'll need to go inside. Now that the mid-day sun is so hot and bright, an early summer for sure, I try to get a few hours of gardening done before lunch. but I had a session with Dr. Aurelius this morning and, given today's date, it ran till almost eleven. My nerves are a little raw, so I could really use the dirt therapy. That's why I'm tempted to ignore her when she appears beside the wheel barrow.

"You've been working hard," Katniss says. "It looks so different."

"Yours is next," I say, not raising my eyes from the planter.

"I'd like that." Her voice sounds quiet, unsure. It irks me a little for some reason, her distracting me while the sun blazes down, almost overhead now, my minutes ticking away when all I want to do is get a few things in the ground. I sling my shovel into the earth, press the blade with my newer foot. The harsh movement feels satisfyingly angry.

"I was hoping we could work on the book a little," she says.

"I'm a little busy right now," I snap, grabbing a seedling a little too harshly and losing a couple of leaves as punishment.

_Calm down. It's not her fault. _A leaf quivers where it's fallen, afraid of my temper already. Behind me, footsteps shuffle into retreat.

"Wait," I manage in a lower tone. "Why don't you go in and fix yourself some lunch? I'll be in as soon as I get these in the ground." Not what I had planned for myself, but realistically, my plan is shot already.

Katniss hesitates, already turned back toward her house. "You sure?" She faces me, her eyebrows perched high over tired gray eyes.

"Sure, I'm sure. Go on in."

And she does.

I'm not sure why she wants to work on the book today of all days, but I do know three things: 1. Despite the good weather, Katniss didn't go hunting today. 2. Neither of us slept at all last night. And 3. Today is the two year anniversary of Prim's and my reaping. And while I talked about it all morning with Dr. Aurelius, that means Katniss did not. Yet, she seems not to want to talk at all. Lunch is eaten in near silence. After that, our work on the book is just as mute.

"Peeta," she mumbles after a half-hour of twirling a sprig of pokeweed I am trying to draw. "Can you tell me more about that girlfriend of yours?"

I'm surprised and puzzled until I remember that I told Katniss about Celie Beeman when she showed me the district a few weeks ago. It has little to do with anything, but conversation would be nice, so I shrug.

"Celie was a soft sort of girl," I say. "Her eyes were big, soft brown. Her eyes were soft, her disposition. She wore her hair in soft, light brown ringlets around her shoulders. She went to school with us; do you remember?" Katniss shakes her head, eyes still on her pokeweed. "No, I guess you were too busy taking care of your family, huh?" I'm hoping this will open her up to discussing what's really on her mind, but she just stares at the weed.

"Tell me about your relationship," she says. "Did you like her?"

"Sure I did. What wasn't to like? She was sweet as a fig, and my parents adored her. Even my mother. Her parents ran the stationery shop. Paper, parchment, even canvas, though by the time I started painting, the Capitol was sending me canvas by the yard.

"She had two little siblings, both toddlers. India and Quil. She used to carry them around, one on each hip. It was so strange to me, to see love like that."

I swallow, casting Katniss a meaningful glance.

"Did you ask her to be your girlfriend?" Katniss asks. I'm pretty sure that she is outright avoiding talking about Prim now, but I answer her anyway.

"No, I gave her a kiss as her birthday gift. After that it was sort of official."

I stop, think, frown.

"Did you just have a birthday?"

Katniss looks up. That dumb weed is still, finally.

"I don't celebrate my birthday anymore. Not since I was a child."

But my shaky memory prickles.

"You did last year," I say. "Your mother bought you some cookies."

The more I think about it, the surer I am. I remember those cookies; my father commissioned me just for the order. We were training at the time, but I took the job anyway. I expected it would be my last frosting gig, and it seemed appropriate that it would be for Katniss.

She blinks. "Did she? I don't remember." Katniss's gaze wanders over my shoulder. "We used to celebrate when I was young, but after my father was killed, there were no means, and once I was in the reaping, there was no point. My gift would just go to waste if I were drawn."

I expect her to talk about the reaping now, about Prim, now that the subject has come up, but Katniss snaps back into her cocoon, eyeing her plant and asking, "How did you and Celie break up?"

I'm a bit flustered at Katniss's persistence and answer automatically.

"Her father walked in on us in her bedroom." The words have left my mouth before I can stop them. Rephrase them, at least. But Katniss eyes me with interest.

"You and Celie…?"

"Not quite," I interject. "We had changed our minds." I don't say how close we had gotten, how we were still getting dressed when we got caught, how our parents hadn't even been that upset - we were merchants' kids, after all, and a match made in heaven, according to them.

And before Katniss can ask any more questions - if Mr. Beeman threw me out (He asked me to stay for dinner.), if I were heartbroken (Maybe a little.), what made Celie and me change our minds (Don't even.), I offer, "We weren't in love." That was ultimately what did the job, anyhow. Sticking around after your girlfriend's dad has seen you in your shorts is only worth it if you love the girl. Of course, this was before all of Panem saw Katniss undress me in the arena. Even then, I would have been afraid to face her father afterward, had he been alive.

She looks at me for a while, nodding, then places the little cutting on the table and goes into the kitchen.

"I'm sorry," I say when she returns with two glasses and a pitcher of water and places a cool glass in my sweaty palm. "Was that too much information?"

"Not at all, she replies, facing me fully and taking her seat. "It's always been obvious that you had girlfriends before the Games." She tilts her head. "You've just never talked about them before."

We both sip our water in silence for a while, not saying anything but still facing one another as though we are having a conversation. The afternoon sun is getting low again and a buttery, golden light settles in the room. Long fingers of it stretch across the table, across the plant book, striping the pitcher. Outside, the spring peepers start up their song from the soggy thicket at the end of the street. A mellow sigh breathes around us and suddenly the water tastes so cool and sweet I feel drunk from it.

"Katniss," I say at last, barely above a whisper so I won't ruin the mood, "you know you can talk with me about anything, right? I'm a good listener, I swear." I flash her a reassuring grin.

"I know," she murmurs back. "I just don't have any words…"

Her sentence hangs there for a long moment, waiting for itself, but it becomes self-prophesying and the rest of the sentence never comes. The spring peepers grow louder in our silence.

"That's okay. We can just sit her until you find them."

Katniss chuckles wryly. "What if I never do?"

"That's okay too. I'm not going anywhere." I put down my water glass and lean over into a beam of that golden light, winking, "I live here."

* * *

><p>Hours later, I lie in bed, breathless and soaked in sweat. Paralyzed with fear.<p>

_It was just a dream, _I tell myself. _Just like all the rest._

But I haven't ever had a dream like this before. I can still smell the blood. Still feel the tears on my cheeks. It's a long time before the nausea passes.

Once feeling returns to my limbs, I go ahead and get up, because it's almost impossible to sleep whenever Katniss dies. The house is dark, and my footsteps echo down the hall as I stumble to the kitchen for a drink.

My mind is a snarl of midnight fog and bits of the nightmare and little flashbacks. My body is fatigued and I ache all over. But, somewhere inside of me, I feel a lightness, like the singing of a bird or the scent of spring.

The dreams are getting better. This time, for the first time, when Katniss died... I tried to save her life.

"Tell me your secrets

And ask me your questions,

Oh, let's go back to the start." - Coldplay

* * *

><p><strong><em>AN: _**I took a couple liberties with Peeta's background for this chapter. I hope they seem logical to you, because once I saw his story this way, I couldn't un-see it. Also, I did write out the dream at the end of the chapter, but I removed it in my final edit to stay focused. If you want to read the dream, let me know and I'll work something out. Thanks again for reading!


	5. The Suction

I had hoped to post this last Thursday as a "Happy Hunger Games" gift, but editing kept calling to me, and I'm happier now that I've made my revisions.

I personally love our new movie, despite the several things that were left out (one of which I've spent so much time pondering I wrote it into the last chapter! haha). I think all the changes were handled well, and I hope all of you - whether you've seen it already or not - are happy with where our fandom is going.

Suzanne Collins is a name on the lips of many these days, so I know you won't forget to tip your hat to her as you read this. Please also enjoy the hand-picked lyrics credited to their respective, talented artists.

Thank you again for your readership!

* * *

><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 5: The Suction**

"I don't wanna have to force you to smile

I'm here to help you notice the rainbow...

I'm trying to be patient

The first step is the hardest"

- "Waiting Outside the Lines," Greyson Chance

Having been awakened early by the nightmare, I have more time than usual in my kitchen. I begin with a hearty bread, thinking it will make a good lunch, but while shaping the loaf, I remember yesterday's conversation with Katniss and decide to make her a belated birthday treat as well.

I get distracted by the details - with all this time, I can easily make her a real birthday cake, but how much to make? I wouldn't want to make so much she has to decide whether or not to waste some, but she may want to share with Haymitch or Sae as well as with me – so it takes me a while to decide on the size and scope of the cake. Then I have to choose flavors, recipes. I begin to imagine what I want it to look like. By the time I think I've decided, the sky is starting to go gray-yellow.

So I start measuring the ingredients. Cocoa and vanilla and sugar and butter. It doesn't take long for the kitchen to smell of it. I haven't baked like this in ages, and it really takes me back: frosting Finnick and Annie's wedding cake, a gargantuan thing that taught me more about myself after the hijacking than a whole month of therapy; the first time my father let me put one of my cakes in the display window, a lemon chiffon with a whipped glaze and gum paste flowers; the first time he helped me with a pastry bag, when my fingers were too small to wrap all the way around.

I guess I had forgotten how different pastries are. Bread is a life-giver, a work horse. But cakes are celebration food. Cakes mean births and weddings, love being shared, beauty and remembrance. People used to buy my cakes, for years believing them to be my father's work, and take them home for a celebration. I miss that feeling of being a part of something special. A guy just doesn't get that by sharing buns and baguettes with the drunk who probably vomits them up afterward and the girl who would be a shriveled skeleton otherwise.

Maybe I really could try it – starting a bakery here again. I mean, there are only a handful of people here, so I don't really need a full-fledged business to serve everyone, but I could make birthday cakes in my kitchen without much trouble. If kids start coming back to the district, I can do cookies like my father used to. I could make different ones every day, animals or something: lemon tiger cookies and pink berry bunnies and chocolate bears. The thought of kids coming every day to see what treat I've made them makes a bubble of warmth rise inside me. If the district were to hear the sound of children's laughter again, I have a feeling there's hope for us all.

I take my time frosting Katniss's cake in a soft orange buttercream, imagining her face when she sees it. Maybe she'll be speechless with surprise. Maybe she will laugh like the children in my daydream, caught up in the fantasy and delight of her very own birthday cake. I don't know if she has ever had one before; I never saw her father or mother buy one at the bakery, and we rarely had any customers from the Seam besides, but I like to think that her childhood birthdays were met with pomp and circumstance. Breakfast in bed and her favorite supper. Treats wrapped in colorful paper. I remember the Katniss of those days, all pigtailed and sparkly as a copper kettle. I remember how her eyes would squinch up as she laughed at outside recess. She always had playmates at recess, though they changed from day to day as though she didn't care who played with her as long as she got to run or throw a ball or hide in the low branches of the three trees at the end of the schoolyard. I remember playing with Lyle and Abram Gunner, and usually Tack, Ana, and Helena; sometimes Celie and her friend Mellia would join us, and we would all play freeze tag or bad egg. But every now and then, I would look up and see that little girl from the Seam, running her fingers through the leaves on the trees or running ahead of three or four other kids, her braids unraveling behind her and her cheeks rosy and round with laughter.

There is a ring of green ivy around the cake now. I'm trying to keep the vines looking delicate and detailed, but I'm so anxious to see Katniss's reaction to her cake that I'm having trouble finishing it. The only thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that it might actually be the first birthday cake she's ever had, and so she deserves every leaf and tendril I can pipe on.

Finally, the thing is finished and I can take it to her. It really is a beautiful cake, almost a shame to cut into it, but it's going to taste good, too, so it would be a shame _not_ to cut it. It's full morning now and late enough that I can bring it over and so I change clothes, pick up the cake, and carry it carefully down my front stoop.

I should have known, when I didn't hear her leave to hunt, that it was not a good day. I guess I thought that yesterday was the tricky day – if she made it through that okay, I figured today would be a piece of cake.

Much like the cake that I am holding when a zombie opens the door.

There is an awkward pause while Katniss does not react and I gather myself. Instead of announcing, "Happy birthday! I brought cake!" as I had planned, I simply step into the house as if she has invited me. The kitchen is still cold and I smell no breakfast, so I set down the cake and begin rooting around for pans.

"You brought cake," the zombie says finally, staring dully at the frosted confection from the still-open doorway.

"Um, yeah," I reply, trying to locate something that will hold a couple eggs and a little bacon. "For your birthday." If I can just get her breakfast started, she can start feeling normal and then we can celebrate.

I find a skillet that is significantly larger than necessary and haul it out.

"But it's not my birthday."

"I know that." I glance at her before I start counting out some eggs. Bad days are always hard on her, but today, I notice, she hasn't even bothered to put her hair in a braid before answering the door. Guiltily, I wonder if I woke her up. "But it _was_ your birthday," I continue, "and birthdays deserve cakes, and I just so happen to be an excellent birthday cake maker. So I made you one."

She just keeps staring at the cake, holding that door, looking like she hopes the cake will pick itself up and let itself back out.

"You don't have to eat it," I say, even though I don't want to. "I just wanted you to have it."

"Oh," her eyes flick toward me for a second, "it's not that I don't appreciate the thought, Peeta. I just... don't feel much like celebrating today."

A draft from the door moves over me, and suddenly I see the scene from the outside: me, barging into Katniss's house while she stands in the open doorway, hair loose around her shoulders. Time slows to let me feel ashamed. I stop preparing breakfast and drop my hands in awkward silence.

"I'm sorry I barged in," I mutter. My mouth is so dry it hurts to swallow. This isn't going as I planned. Even when I saw it was a bad day, I thought the cake might cheer her up. I thought breakfast would fix her. Now I just feel like a fool. A cooking fool. I step out of the kitchen and into Katniss's entryway.

I say carefully, "I would still like to celebrate your birthday."

She looks at the floor, her body drooping as if she wishes she were lying down on it. "Okay, I will," she sighs, "but not today."

"Why not?" I charge. "Because of yesterday?" I'm being insensitive, but getting through yesterday without a breakdown had seemed like such a good sign to me. And now the little birthday party I had planned in my head has come down to such an anticlimax, and my disappointment is bearing down on me. Wasn't she supposed to laugh like she was a child again? I spent hours on that cake, thinking all the while that Katniss would be delighted. Instead, she's practically catatonic.

"That reaping was two years ago," I say, my voice a little gruffer than it should be. "You and I should both be dead ten times over now, you know. But we're not. We're alive. That's worth celebrating, isn't it? We have to celebrate those small things like birthdays and eat cake."

"We may be alive," Katniss says miserably, "but other people are not." It's like the words were swelling behind a dam, waiting to burst out of her. She couldn't wait to remind me what a graveyard we live in. I don't need the reminder.

"You think I don't know that? You think I don't realize that I'm an orphan? That all I have is that house and the two of you? You think I don't wake up every day knowing that I'll never see my best friend or my family again?" Katniss purses her lips like she's thinking of saying something. "Yes, I had some issues with my family, Katniss, but I still loved them." Her lips twitch as her eyes flick back to me.

"We weren't close like your family, but I still loved them. They died, like thousands upon thousands who died in the war, and we were left behind to do what we can. There are, like, six people in this whole district, Katniss. We're all grieving here. We all depend on each other to get through this. Like you and me: we need to be able to talk, because we have to get well together." I take a breath. "That's the only reason Dr. Aurelius sent me back."

Katniss gazes at me for a long time with such a guilty expression that I think she is going to apologize and shut the door at last. In fact, I'm desperate for her to. But then her face relaxes, tired and pitiful, and I can tell what she is going to say before she even shakes her head. "I just need some time alone."

Exasperated, my hands fly into the air of their own accord. "Fine. Enjoy your cake," I growl. Then, remembering, I shout, "Or don't!" And I tear through the door and down the steps, bumping into Greasy Sae on the sidewalk as I go.

"She needs some time alone," I spit, a black cloud fat my back.

My feet smack the pavement like it has somehow offended them, and my fists clench and unclench at my sides. The thing that gets my attention, though, is the toothy shadow prowling at my curtained windows. I hear whispering as I slam the front door and latch it shut.

Damn it. The girl's got me seeing mutts again.

I sit down at my table and take a few breaths, but the kitchen, still spattered in flour and cocoa, is in full view; the next thing I know, there's a crash against the wall and the sugar bowl that was on the table has suddenly gone missing.

How can I come so unhinged so fast?

"I see you," I shout at the things that aren't there. My kitchen is starting to disappear from the outsides in. Despite feeling over-full with anger, a good measure of panic is arriving, too. I'll have a real attack soon, and a bad one from the feel of it.

Gritting my teeth, I run to the phone.

"Good morning, offices of Valkyrian and Aurelius. How may we help you?" says a woman's voice so smooth and accented it sounds like an automatic response.

"Can I talk to Dr. Aurelius?" I gasp.

"Dr. Aurelius is unavailable at the moment. May I take a message?"

"This is Peeta Mellark. Could you tell him I'm in crisis?" _Please_, my brain says, but I can't force it to my tongue.

"Certainly, Mr. Mellark. You can be reached at home?"

"Yes," I hiss, waiting only to hear the receptionist confirm that she will let the doctor know before I slam the phone to the receiver. The anger builds inside me until my head pounds. Mutts lurk in the shadows of my vision. Why won't Katniss talk with me? That's what we're _supposed_ to do! How can she feel better if she just locks herself away? She can't; I just know she can't. And, selfishly, she's keeping me from moving forward. I need to know more than just what isn't real... I need to know the truth. Shutting out the mutts - in answer, another dances just behind me; I can feel her - won't give me my memories back. The least Katniss could do is tell me what really happened.

Anger floods over me again, flushing heat into my face and neck as I pace my living room floor. When the phone rings, I leap for it so fast I knock the entire coffee table over, scattering sketches and catalogs all the way to the stairs.

"Peeta, can you tell me what's happening?"

"I'm... I had a fight with Katniss," I say. "I'm seeing things."

"Okay, can you tell me a little more?" the doctor prompts.

"I went over to her house this morning." I can't bring myself to tell him about the cake. It seems embarrassing somehow. "But she didn't want to talk. We're supposed to talk! I got so mad, I left."

"So you got mad, and now you feel like you're having an episode?" Dr. Aurelius's voice is low and level. Concerned, but calm. I feel it pulling at me like a lifeguard trying to save me from the suction of a dark and stormy sea.

"Yes," I say, torn between the sane world and the darkness beneath. I crouch down, cradling the phone with one hand and covering my head with the other. The wall presses against my arm when I rock forward on my toes. It feels cool on my clammy skin.

"Do you still like you might be having an episode?"

"Yes." I sound like a little child, my mouth numb with dissociation.

"Can you find someplace comfortable to lie down? A bed or a couch, not the floor. I will wait while you get comfortable."

I make a spot on the couch, but I can't say that I am comfortable with the throbbing behind my eyes and the jitters in my hands and the choking pressure somewhere above my stomach. Nevertheless, Dr. Aurelius starts coaching my breathing and redirecting my thoughts, and after a while, the hallucinations are gone. I start to tell him more about my confrontation with Katniss, even going back to explain about the cake.

"It sounds like you put a lot of work into that. I can understand why you felt so disappointed," he says.

"I just don't understand why she won't talk about what happened," I complain. "All I think about is how we can deal with this wreckage. Doesn't she want to get better too?"

"Peeta," he says, ever patient, "everyone grieves in their own way. I have never forced you to talk when you weren't ready to talk."

"So you're saying I should just leave her alone?"

"I'm not saying what you should or shouldn't do. But I do think Katniss will do well if you respect her right to heal at her own pace."

I sigh with frustration. "What if she never wants to talk? Isn't that what you sent me back here for? How am I supposed to know who I am if she won't tell me?" That last part sounded right in my head, but now that it's out, it sounds all wrong.

"What is it that you need to know?" asks Dr. Aurelius.

I hesitate before launching into a tirade on how Katniss knows more about me than I know about myself these days, and she's keeping all that information locked behind her moody, pursed lips, and don't I have a right to _know_ these things? And that's when Dr. Aurelius tells me he thinks we can try the next step of therapy now.

It goes back to all those video clips the Capitol used against me, about 30 in all, and my watching them like I did before, learning not to strangle Katniss and how to avoid my episodes. Except, we only used a few of those clips before, whereas now I will take them all on, one by one.

"And this time," Dr. Aurelius cautions, "the point is to not avoid anything."

I can hit _pause_ and _play_. And, if I've had an attack and missed something, I can hit _reverse_. But I am no longer allowed to hide away in mental kitchens or even focus so hard on staying calm that I miss a single moment of what I'm watching. Because, in the end, we hope to have replaced my damaged memories – not with new ones, exactly, but at least with the truth.

"After this, Peeta," the doctor says, "if she knows anything about you that you don't know, it will be a power you have given her yourself."

If it weren't for the attacks, I would watch them all today.

We start with an easy one that wasn't tampered with much. Even then, I feel myself slipping in just a few minutes. I see Katniss light me on fire. I see her hold my arm over my head, feel her iron grip, watch my arm shatter into shards of glass, lose the pause button entirely. So I watch it again. She still lights me on fire. Still grabs my arm with her claws. And I watch it again.

Dr. Aurelius can tell that I'm running thin after a few runs, but he has me try one more time.

I feel so drained I can barely hold the remote to press play. Part of me wants to cry. I already know I will be spending the rest of the day in bed. But the clip plays, and I don't know if I'm just so defeated that I am watching everything from outside myself now, but I see the whole thing without a mutt or a shadow or a pause.

Katniss didn't light me on fire, but Cinna did. Then she held my hand, and we rode our chariot through the opening ceremonies. And I looked at her. And looked at her. And looked at her.

I don't remember this. What I remember is the hijacked version, and yet the Capitol clearly spent so little time and effort on reprogramming this memory. It's discouraging, knowing how much work must lie ahead of me. But the therapy works.

I can sort all this out. I can do it.

Slowly, carefully, I take the victory upstairs, and I let it sing me to sleep.

"I'm fine in the fire.

I feed on the friction.

I'm right where I should be;

Don't try and fix me."

- "Fix Me," 10 Years


	6. It's a Mistake

****Aw, poor Peeta. That last chapter was tough on him. But something really interesting happens in this one... What could it be? Hm...

How many times can I remind you? These characters and associated material belong to the ubiquitous Suzanne Collins, and the lyrics are credited as appropriate.

Happy reading!

* * *

><p><strong>Smoke Rising Chapter 6: It's a Mistake<strong>

"I don't know what I wanna be yet

But I can show that I need to see this

No time for lies and empty fights

I'm on your side

Can we live a life of peace and happiness?

I don't think so

And looking I am scared to lose the things I love"

"You Fight Me," Breaking Benjamin

So, it turns out, Katniss and I fight. We fight a lot, actually. It's not every day, which I guess is good, but it's confusing. We can go days without any friction, just enjoying time together or even enjoying time apart. But then something happens – I bring breakfast and she insists she's not hungry, or I mention something about maybe not giving Haymitch any more white liquor – and it breaks down so quickly I lose track of what went wrong. She's a good fighter, too. She can really get her nails in me.

A fight might start about if it's going to rain or not (I wish I were making that up), but it always ends with her asking why I won't show her my paintings or if I'm going to set up a bakery again and how I'm putting too much pressure on her to get over her traumas and act normal.

I don't want her to act normal, I say. She's never acted normal in her entire life and I'm not expecting her to start now. But then she points out how I'm always trying to get her to talk, to me or to Dr. Aurelius.

I just want her to feel better, I say, and that's precisely her point. She's not feeling better soon enough for my comfort.

It's completely irrational for me to feel this way, since inside I am still a raggedy patchwork quilt of a person, so of course I deny it. I tell her she doesn't understand me, which feels like the truth, since I don't understand myself, and if she hasn't started screaming yet, that line always does it.

After the first fight, we didn't talk for almost a week. I was afraid that I would go mutt on her. I was afraid of the fact that she could bring the mutts back for me. I was afraid I would lose myself and hurt her. And I was afraid I had broken some integral part of our friendship and it no longer made sense for us to see each other. I told myself it had hardly made sense when we _weren't _fighting.

Now it seems that our friendship wouldn't make sense _without _the fighting, it's so ingrained in how we interact.

The summer was hot and dry and long, and it really took a toll on us. I had to re-learn that I wasn't about to strangle the girl, and she hid out for a while until her relapse of depression lessened. Then, by the time we could sit in a room together again, staying inside was unbearably stifling. Outdoor activities were no better. Week after week of Katniss's hunts being sticky and unyielding, week after week of me battling a wilting garden under a relentless sun: maybe it put us in bad moods, and we just aren't healthy enough yet to recover from bad moods so we can be civil. Maybe it's just growing pains, a symptom of our recovery like the itch under a bandage. It feels like it's us, though; apparently we are just the type who fight.

But a couple of weeks ago, she started talking about memories. It's this memory book that she wants to have, an encyclopedia of sorts, cataloging everyone who has touched our lives somehow and left the world behind for us. I mostly let her do the talking and remembering, since, as far as I know, she hasn't been doing any of that all year; but every now and then she asks me to add things myself. We write everything down, taking as much time and space as we like and taking care to leave nothing out.

It is such a great relief to open up these paths with Katniss that I can almost ignore how much I miss my video therapy. That is ugly work, ruining me for hours or days at a time, so I tend to save it for Katniss's bad days, especially if she goes hunting and is out of earshot in case I cry out during an attack. But with this memory book, she has been showing up at my house in the morning and not leaving till the evening, and even though I kind of hate the video therapy because of how it makes me feel, I kind of love it, too, because of what it returns to me.

So it's been a few weeks since I've gotten to do my therapy, but there is more talking now, and some fighting, and some memories. I try to remember that I've come a long way since the hijacking, and Katniss tries not to be so depressed all the time.

It's a mild autumn evening when things change for good.

We have been working on the book, as usual, and we've more or less avoided fighting all day. She insists we go outside for part of the afternoon, so I walk our gardens, pulling weeds and checking on the vegetables that should be ready for harvesting soon. Katniss keeps teasing me for gardening when I can't tell poisonous berries from good ones, and I tease her back for running around barefoot like a dog so much lately. But now as the sky turns a hazy purple, we stand in my kitchen, waiting for our stew to simmer down so we can have dinner, and the laughing has retreated into a quiet contentedness.

As I gather our dishes and utensils, Katniss watches at my shoulder. She stares at me, intense and focused, as though peering into my brain. It's pretty creepy, actually, the way she looks and looks without blinking or saying anything, and I feel a nervous tic coming on; but just as I turn to her, about to say something, she reaches out and touches my cheek.

It's a soft touch. Her thumb slides toward my mouth as her fingers slip down to my chin.

"You're doing better, aren't you?" asks Katniss.

"Sometimes."

She nods, leaving her hand where it is, but her eyes sweep over my face, slowly inspecting. "I'm glad," she murmurs, and I can smell her signature, earthy fragrance as she breathes. Her process takes several long minutes. Somehow, it's calming. I don't object. "You're different," she declares at last, with a note of satisfaction in her voice.

"Is that a good thing?" I ask cautiously. What I really want to ask is, "Different from what?" Does she mean my traumas have changed me? Did she like the boy from the arenas better? But what I ask is if the change is good, and what she tells me is that it is.

I wasn't aware of moving my hands, but I feel now that they are on her back, my fingers spread wide.

"You've lost weight." I blurt it out, but at least I don't sound as alarmed as I feel.

Katniss narrows her eyes at me. "You have, too."

"Have I?" I wonder. "But I've been eating enough..." My mental tally of Calories runs automatically and falls short. Just because I eat three times a day does not mean that I'm eating three _meals_ a day. Certainly not the way I used to. Katniss clearly knows this, but she doesn't call me out on it, simply keeps watching me.

She is standing close to me, and I can feel her angles and curves and little waves of heat. A pesky memory that this sort of thing used to be dangerous and impossible attempts to distract me – so recently I was afraid of the mutts - but I brush it away so I can enjoy the moment.

Her hand drops to my chest, and her eyes follow, and I wonder if she is noticing how hard my heart is beating, but what she says is, "You haven't let yourself hold me in a long time."

And when she looks up, her gray eyes wide and searching, her mouth is just right there in front of mine, and I can't help but kiss her.

It's a mistake, but so natural. I know her lips. It feels like a dream that I remember, rather than something we used to do, but my body can't tell the difference; it knows her face well.

My fingers feel her breathing through her ribs. My chest is thinking of ripping apart. This moment could go on forever, and I would never question it, never wonder how our bipolar relationship has brought us here, never wonder how I got so lucky. Our lips part, but I just kiss her again, and it's not enough for whatever is possessing me. A thousand kisses would never be enough.

There is a knock at the door and Katniss jumps back. One second she is in my arms, and the next she is watching me from the end of my counter. I stare at her, trying to gather my breath or my thoughts or some good sense, when the knock comes again. Neither of us says anything as I turn and walk away.

Haymitch gives me a long look when I answer the door, then catches sight of Katniss behind me and lets his eyes flick between us until he is satisfied with whatever he sees before explaining his visit: "You don't have any goose food, do you?"

"What?" I ask, genuinely surprised. And this is Haymitch we're talking about, so that's something.

"Goose food. Food for... geese. I seem to have gotten some baby geese." He scratches his neck self-consciously.

"Goslings," I say, trying to suppress a smile. "I have some oats. Do they eat oats?"

"I don't know," he replies, nonplussed. I lead the way to my pantry and he follows. "They don't come with directions. Good evening, sweetheart." He gives Katniss a nod.

"Why do you have baby geese?" she asks. She has perched herself on my counter, looking for all the world as though she sits there all the time, even though I didn't know until now that she could even hoist herself up that high on anything without branches and roots.

"It was an accident," Haymitch grumbles as I measure out a tin full of rolled oats. "The eggs showed up in the spring, but the parents have been watching 'em. Both parents, too; I didn't even know birds did that – raised kids together. There are five of them... the babies, that is."

"Goslings," I mumble. I can tell Katniss hears.

"But the parents, they're just gone. All summer, they were here, marching the family all around my house, and now all of a sudden, poof! Disappeared." There's a moment of quiet.

"So you're gonna raise the goslings?" Katniss asks, kicking her legs from the counter in an endearing, childish gesture.

"I gotta feed 'em, anyhow. I can't have these things just dying in my yard." Haymitch evaluates his tin of oats and nods to me. "Well, thank you much. I guess I'll go see if they eat this stuff."

"We can always try something else," I say. "I have all kinds of food we can try. We won't let them starve."

"No, we sure won't," he replies. I don't think he means to, but he looks at my thin middle and Katniss's bony legs as he says it.

In Haymitch's absence, an awkwardness fills the room. Katniss shows signs of bolting, but our stew is about ready, so I make some excuses to go upstairs, hoping she will stay and eat. Once I'm in my room, however, I feel so embarrassed that I can't make myself go back down again.

Why did I have to kiss her? She was just starting to really talk to me! Now, the moment she gets observant about how I'm doing, I have to go and kiss her?

I kick the foot of my bedframe with my newer leg. It doesn't make me feel better, so I kick it with my original leg. That doesn't exactly make me feel better either, but I'm too busy cursing and hobbling to the bathroom for a bandage to think about the kiss. For a few minutes, anyway. Then it's back to mortification, as before.

I pace around the bathroom, trying to pluck up some courage and make myself go back downstairs, but it takes me so long that, by the time I've returned, Katniss is gone. Her dirty bowl is in my sink, though. At least she ate before she left.

It's raining in the morning, but I hear Katniss go down to hunt despite the weather. She's avoiding me, of course. She doesn't have to eat breakfast with me if she's on a hunt.

Souls! I don't think I've ever acted so stupid in my whole life! It wasn't even a year ago that I tried to strangle her, and here I go kissing her. I didn't even ask her permission – I just took her in my arms and kissed her, like I had the right. As if she wanted to play lovers again.

The worst part is, I can't stop thinking about how it felt to hold her like that. The feeling of her bony, little body in my arms, the chafe of our rough lips against each other – it sounds so unappealing in my head, but my heart thumps at the memory. The more I try to focus on mundane tasks like baking, even laundry, the harder it gets to ignore how badly I want to kiss her again.

And I have no right to touch her. No right to even hope. Kissing would only make things worse.

Since she's hunting for the first time in weeks, I try to do my therapy, but I'm so consumed with my thoughts that I don't even know which clip I'm watching. It's not my day to call Dr. Aurelius, and I'm not in crisis, so that's out. I dig something out of the basement and paint for a while, then hide it from myself as usual. I eat an early lunch.

With nothing else to do, I find myself on Haymitch's back stoop, watching the young geese play in puddles.

"Ate those oats right up," comes Haymitch's voice from the door behind me.

"I'm glad I could help," I say. One of the geese has found a deep spot and is half-floating in his puddle. "They aren't as young as I thought, by your description."

"No, I guess not," he agrees. "It seems like they should be flying south soon, though, and I don't know if they'll do it without someone to show 'em how."

"It doesn't get too cold around here. Maybe they won't need to migrate," I say, trying to be optimistic. Haymitch just grunts.

"I guess it helps to have someone older help you navigate," I add thoughtfully.

There is a pause before Haymitch clears his throat.

"You figured it out yet?" he asks, leaning against the railing opposite my perch on the stoop.

"Figured what out?" I return.

"That you love her," he says. He gives me a sidelong smirk before throwing some crumbled, stale bread toward the puddles.

"I don't love her," I protest. He guffaws. "I don't – not like that – I _can't_. She and I barely talk. I still have trouble remembering who she is." None of this sounds convincing. I'm usually good with words, but my mouth is moving faster than my brain.

Haymitch, meanwhile, is shaking his head and chuckling quietly to himself. "Always, you've done everything you could for that girl, no matter how little you talked, or who she was, or who she was pretending to be. If you think you don't love her, you're going to have to give me better reasons than that."

_I can't love her because I tried to kill her_, I think. _I can't love her because I still see her sometimes with machinery for cheekbones or a trickle of blood at her mouth. I can't love her because some days, I believe the lies, I think she's killed my family, I think she's trying to murder me._

I swallow and ask, "What makes you think I love her?"

"I know how you used to look at her," he says. "Even used to see it big and pretty on screen, didn't I? Well, you're looking at her that way now. They took some things from you, kid, but they couldn't take _that_."

I watch the geese quietly for a moment, unsure of what to say.

"Does she love me?" I ask.

"What do I look like, a mind-reader?" he laughs.

"You think you have me all figured out," I remind him.

"Some people are just easy to read," says Haymitch. He squints out into the rain and pinches some more crumbs off for the geese.

"But you two are so alike. You're saying you can't read her?"

He pauses for a moment before answering, "I suppose she feels the same about you as she did before. They didn't take anything from her like they did you." He taps his head with a crusty finger.

"Well there's a frustrating answer," I sigh. "I might as well ask a flower if she loves-me-not."

"If the answer means that much to you, why don't you ask her yourself?"

"It doesn't matter to me." I pull myself up from the stoop and back into the rain. "I told you, I can't love her. So it doesn't matter."

"You might not remember, but it never mattered before, either," Haymitch calls after me. "You went right on feelin' how you felt without regards to if she loved you back." His bread crumbs scatter past me, right up to the half-swimming goose.

Bread being tossed in the rain – now, _that_ I remember.

"I'm not the one you want, babe,

I'm not the one you need."

- "It Ain't Me, Babe," Bob Dylan


	7. A Beautiful Lie

Surprise! A new chapter! I didn't have this one written when I posted last week; it just sprang full-formed from my head like Athena on Sunday. So just be thankful with me and don't expect it to happen again! :-P

I like the lyrics of 30 Seconds to Mars's "A Beautiful Lie" that I also used it for the title of this chapter. Suzanne Collins, of course, owns the characters and associated material, and other lyrics are credited as appropriate.

Thank you for reading!

* * *

><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 7: A Beautiful Lie**

"Try to let go of the truth

The battles of your youth

'Cause this is just a game.

It's a beautiful lie."

- "A Beautiful Lie," 30 Seconds to Mars

The weather has cooled considerably, and the recent rains have brought a chill to the air that urges me to get my harvest done before we have a freeze. I'm digging up my planter of sweet potatoes when I hear my name from down the street.

"Good gracious!" calls the brightly-dressed woman in her distinctive accent. "Just look at you!" Her heels click-click-click as she tries to rush, but she slips a little on the wet sidewalk.

"Effie?" I see it, but I don't believe it. In seconds, I'm near enough to hug, but too muddy to take the chance. Even so, I politely take the wheeled bag Effie is dragging. It's pumpkin orange, like the rest of her: dressed for the harvest.

"Oh, Peeta, Peeta, let me get a look at you, my dear!" she gushes, halting in the brisk morning to inspect me. I'm just in shirtsleeves and work pants. And dirt, of course. She had to see me right when I was knee-deep in new sweet potatoes.

"Would you like to come inside?" I ask, hoping equally for a yes, so I can get warm and scrubbed up, and a no, because my house isn't what I would call _Effie clean_.

Effie's bronze-polished fingers are pressed to her mouth, and she gives a simple nod, still looking me over. There is a sparkle of tears in her eyes.

"Forgive the mess," I say, slipping my boots off by the door and parking Effie's bag nearer the clean kitchen. "If I had known you were coming, I would have straightened up."

Effie, who has wandered quietly into my living room, spins around. "You didn't know? Oh, dear. I'm so sorry. I called the other house, and with no answer, I sent a letter. I don't know why I didn't – I just thought you would both be in the other house."

_The other house? _Katniss's_ house?_

"And I certainly thought Haymitch would have discussed my visit with you," she continues, looking so upset that I feel the need to say something quickly.

"Well, Katniss doesn't answer the phone much. I'm not even sure she checks her mail. It's nice to have you here, regardless."

Effie purses her lips. "Will we," she asks, glancing around, "be seeing Katniss?"

She really thinks we live together. I almost laugh aloud. I haven't seen Katniss in weeks, and Effie thinks we live together! I sidestep into the kitchen and lather up my hands and arms with the water running to give me a minute.

"I'm sure she's just at the other house," I call. I bring the hand towel with me to the living room. "I've been gardening all morning, so I haven't seen her yet today. Would you like to go see her now while I get changed?"

Effie looks over my clothes once again before agreeing to my suggestion. I feel bad knowing that Katniss will be caught completely off-guard by Effie's visit, and my subsequent one, but all I can do is call to warn her, and we've already established that she doesn't answer the phone.

By the time I get to Katniss's, I'm expecting her to open the door with a glare. But she opens the door before I can even knock, and it's immediately apparent that we are reprising our roles as the lovers Effie escorted around Panem.

"There you are! We were wondering how long you would keep us waiting!" She stands on her toes and brushes a kiss against my cheek and then closes the door.

Effie is in the dining room, inspecting the empty china cabinet that came with the house. "This is just lovely," she says to Katniss. "Is that mahogany?"

"I dunno," Katniss replies brightly, which is just rude enough to get Effie to look up, but when she sees me standing in the entryway with Katniss, her alarmed expression melts.

I ask, "Have you served the tea yet, Katniss? Or were you waiting for me?" I know she hasn't served anything. That's why I brought cheese buns.

"I... was waiting."

"That's sweet of you." I return her kiss on the cheek and turn into the kitchen. "But you shouldn't keep our guest waiting. How do you like your tea, Effie? Katniss, you go ahead and visit with Effie in the living room. I don't mind." And, at her cue, Katniss shows Effie to a seat.

From the kitchen, I can overhear some of the conversation, though I lose a little to the sounds of running water and whistling steam. It sounds like travel is restricted between the Capitol and District 12, to which our peace here can probably be attributed – the trip is not very Capitol-friendly. Effie had to take a train to District 6, where she had to get a pass to visit our district specifically, then she had a connection via hovercraft to 13, and another train here. Only Districts 8, 11, and 13 will connect to 12, and the visitor's pass sounds difficult to attain; you have to be visiting family or on a business opportunity.

"That's how I got here," she shares as I set the tea on the coffee table. "Everyone knows how close we are. I got to claim you as family."

Katniss and I exchange glances before I smile at Effie. I say, "I think that's exactly right, Effie," and I lean over to fill her teacup.

My good manners put her at ease. She picks up her cup and takes a sip. "But if you aren't following the news, you don't know about the elections?" Her drawn-on eyebrows threaten to disappear into her harvest-colored wig.

"What elections?" Katniss and I ask in unison.

"Well, President Paylor says we need to leave the old Panem behind us. She says the districts have been trained to work against each other and against the Capitol. Of course, many of us in the Capitol disagree with her, but she's proposing that we strive for unity, and who can be against that? So, we are doing away with the numbers – 'a ranking system,' she called it – and now each citizen of Panem gets two votes – two districts. So many people have moved, you see, and some districts were..." Effie swallows, "_damaged_ so heavily... everyone gets to claim two districts. You can vote on a new name and also a representative. Of course, some of the districts have become so small that I don't know who will represent them – do you even have a mayor here?" We tell her that we do not, and Effie tuts. "But the naming vote has been a popular issue. Everyone has an opinion. It's all very exciting!"

Some of the old, bubbly Effie is beginning to show again.

"When are the elections?" asks Katniss.

"Oh, it should be any day now! I don't know if you will have polls here, since there is no local government, but there are mail-in ballots as well. You really should turn your TV on every once in a while."

"I guess we're just a little busy," Katniss says as she squeezes my hand conspicuously. Effie notices the movement, but her forehead puckers just a bit.

"I'm so sorry for the confusion about my visit," she says. "I sent the letter to this house, but I suppose you must have never gotten it. It was a quite a bit of luck that I happened upon Peeta outside – I never would have known what house to go to!"

She is asking us why the separate houses but trying not to pry. This is the part where Katniss tells Effie that we don't live together, we don't get along, we're mentally disoriented, and she can't even look at me without me thinking it's some signal to kiss her.

"Oh, we're so selfish," says Katniss, looking at her lap. "We just got so used to two houses, we can't give one up!" She looks up with an embarrassed-looking smile, her cheeks faintly dotted with pink. "Sometimes mail and things just get lost in the shuffle."

It's well played. The Capitolite in Effie will understand how hard it can be to give up creature comforts like fine houses and solid wood furniture. Effie smiles back sympathetically and changes the subject herself.

I remember what Haymitch said about me loving Katniss, and I realize I must have misunderstood him. Of course I love Katniss, as a friend. We all love her. And why not? She's bright, strong, fiercely independent, loyal... Let's face it, the girl is beautiful. And compelling! Sure, some people might think she's rude and unfriendly, but she's only speaking her mind. And I don't know anyone who stands up for something or someone they care about the way Katniss does. Yes, I misunderstood what Haymitch was saying, and I was wrong to contradict him. I love her absolutely.

But, as we sit in the living room, listening to Effie talk about how popular gold still is in the Capitol and how long it's going to take to get used to the new district names, Katniss curls up next to me on the couch with her feet tucked beneath her and strokes my arm. A thrill of something – terror, excitement – courses through me while tail-ends of memories and the shimmer of tracker jacker venom and the pleasure of the touch all crash together and make the hair on my arms stand on end.

I look at Katniss, hoping she can read my mind and stop it with the stroking. She does look at me, but instead her hand slips down to mine, intertwining our fingers and leaning her head on my shoulder. While this is less goosebump-inducing than the former caress, it is a closer gesture. I imagine holding her in my arms. Kissing her. Tearing her apart. Calling her the mutt she is. _Is not. _Beads of sweat break on my brow, and I pull my hand away to brush my forehead dry.

When Effie begins telling us about how many old friends of hers have moved out to the districts, Katniss's hand begins the stroking again. Back and forth. Back and forth. I notice, at some point, that my foot is jiggling nervously, bouncing against the floor in a soft tch-tch-tch-tch. I wipe my palms on my pants and cast a glance at Katniss, hoping she will notice how anxious she is making me.

Effie talks on, counting out names on her fingers, and Katniss nods in a sympathetic manner. Back and forth her fingers go. Back and forth.

Tch-tch-tch-tch.

"I hope I'm not intruding," Effie gazes between us with the smile of someone who thinks they have been let in on a secret. "You keep looking at Katniss so."

"No, not intruding. I just wonder if I might have a moment alone with her?" I jump to my feet, slipping my arm from that dangerous hand. "Can I get you anything from the kitchen? More tea? Another bun?"

"Oh, please don't bother. I'll just go freshen up, if I may."

Katniss, who has been staring incredulously in my direction from her seat, manages a polite response to Effie. We watch her walk down the hall to the bath and hear the click of the door.

"What are you doing?" I whisper hoarsely.

"Me? You're the one getting all jumpy."

Since she refuses to stand, I squat down beside her. "Do we really have to start acting again? I thought we were past all the games."

She stares at me, hard, before asking, "What do you want to do? Tell her the truth?" The way she says _truth_ sounds wet and hateful.

I think, _Yes, that's exactly what I want to do_, but I say nothing. I don't want to start a fight while Effie is just down the hall; I just want to stop pretending.

"No, we don't live together. And we aren't married, either," Katniss says mockingly. "In fact, we alternate fighting and doing stupid things, then not talking to each other for weeks at a time."

Stupid things like kissing her, she means.  
>"Okay," I concede, "we don't have to tell her the truth. But surely we don't have to play the old gig again. Can't we just act friendly? We don't have to..." I pause.<p>

"Touch," Katniss finishes. Her lips pucker for a second as she considers. She doesn't look offended or anything. Just compliant, like I've handed her new stage directions. She nods. "Okay. We can do that."

The door down the hall opens again and Effie walks tentatively back into the living room with that little smile on her face.

"Should I give you another moment?" she asks.

"No, Effie, thank you," I say, pulling up from the floor and waiting for Effie to take her seat again before I take mine.

It's much easier to talk without the physical contact. I manage to cover up the little etiquette blunders Katniss makes, and she rewards me with such warm smiles that I'm sure Effie doesn't even notice we aren't touching anymore. We keep our hands next to each other on the couch, except when Katniss laughs and I hover my hand just behind her back as she doubles over. It's nice, actually. I get to make caring gestures to Katniss without worrying about how they make me feel. And I get to talk with her, kindly and freely, when we would otherwise be sequestered away in our separate houses.

Around one o'clock, Katniss turns from Effie to me and says, "Usually Peeta makes the lunches around here, Effie." She smiles with her eyebrows raised. "What can he get for you?"

"There's not much but soup or sandwiches," I smile at Effie as well. "But if you have any requests, I'd be glad to see what I can whip up."

For some reason Effie looks caught off-guard. She glances around for the clock, sees the time, and stammers, "I'm, ah, actually not hungry just yet. All the tea and buns." She looks at us and smiles weakly. "But you two go ahead and eat. I don't mind."

Since Katniss and I have already eaten more than we usually do for lunch, neither of us is hungry, either. Politeness failed us this time.

"Well, would you like to take a walk around town?" Katniss looks a bit lost herself. "There isn't much to see... but lots of room for improvement."

I'm proud of her for finding a silver lining for Effie. But Effie shakes her head, her expression tight.

"Not yet, thank you. Please, don't delay your lunch on my account."

Katniss and I exchange looks and go into the kitchen.

"Did I do something wrong?" she whispers.

"No," I assure her. "Perfect hostess." I make some fresh tea and bring out the pot to refill Effie's cup. She is standing by the front door, looking out the window toward the end of the street.

"Would you like some more tea, Effie?"

She whirls around, sees me standing there by her cup, and plasters a wide smile on her orange lips. "Oh, maybe one more cup," she says, tottering back over to me. "Such good manners!" At the last, her voice breaks, and she pats me on the shoulder. When she picks up her tea, a little shimmer drips from her cheek.

"I'm so proud of you," she sniffles. The teacup and saucer rattle in her hands.

I hate to see Effie so unwound this way. I squat down next to her chair so she can see me looking up to her. "Is something bothering you, Effie?"

"No, not at all," she says, taking a steady breath then a long sip of tea. She sets the cup down and puts her hands on my shoulders. "You and Katniss are growing into such beautiful people." Her voice is steady and her eyes are wet but not tearing up anymore.

"Thank you," I say politely. "That's kind of you to say."

"I'm so glad you have each other," she adds, giving my shoulders a squeeze. Her smile now is an honest one, shy and close-lipped.

I don't trust myself to say the right thing to that, so I just nod and place a hand over one of Effie's.

She glances to the door again.

"Would it be terribly rude if I went out for a while?" she asks, her voice far away.

"Whatever you like," I tell her. "I can take you to-"

"Oh, that won't be necessary," she says, looking back at me. She whispers, "I won't be alone." Her eyes crinkle and I feel that either she is going crazy or she is privately enjoying something.

I stand up and offer her my hand to help her from her seat, which earns another look of pride. Taking my arm, she asks quietly if I might take her back to the other house to fetch her suitcase. Katniss leaves the kitchen to give Effie a hug before the two of us head back out into the chilly day, down the street to my house. Once Effie has her orange bag rolling along the sidewalk again, she walks very slowly so that I will be closed up in Katniss's house before she reaches her destination.

Hours later, Katniss and I sit out on the porch swing in front of her house, bundled up and listening to shrieks of laughter.

"I wish I could see what they were doing," says Katniss. "I didn't know Effie could laugh like that and I'd love to know what causes it."

"It's the geese," I say. "I heard her say they were splashing her."

"That's bad news for her clothes."

"It didn't sound like she minded."

The laughter continues, now with an added percussion of some kind.

"They wouldn't kill the goslings, would they?"

I chuckle. "I don't think so."

"Well," Katniss stares off, imagining, "what could be making that noise?"

"I'm not sure I want to know."

Katniss looks at me with a mixture of shock and amusement. "You don't think that Haymitch and Effie would...?"

I shrug. "They've been friends a long time."

I don't know why, but that makes us both go quiet. I look away, up the block.

"At least she's distracted. She won't notice me leaving to sleep in my own house tonight." I should probably go now, while I have the chance. I don't want to have to sneak home.

"You could stay," says Katniss. She breathes in. "There are two extra beds." We both look at the blue painted boards at our feet. She's not asking me to stay; she's just letting me know that I don't have to sneak.

I stand up. "Thanks anyway." I start for the steps.

"Peeta?" I turn back to see her standing, hanging on the swing's chain, letting the cold metal press against her cheek. "I'm sorry. About the physical stuff. I didn't think about it being tough for you."

"It wasn't so bad," I say. I've been much worse, so it's not really a lie. She levels her eyes at me though, and I start feeling guilty. If she can apologize for touching my arm, I should apologize for kissing her last month. But it hurts to think of bringing it up now and admitting I crossed a line. Besides, it's not like she was in danger of having a breakdown, like me. That doesn't make us even, really; but it makes me feel a little better, because I don't want to apologize and she looks so sweet and sorry that I just can't think about it right now.

I step nearer, then stop myself. _Ask first. _ I hold out my arms. "Can I get a hug?"

And, grinning, Katniss throws her arms around me like she thought I'd never ask.

Her dark braid brushes over my fingers, softly, playfully. She smells so good, feels solid and human and small in my arms. This is good. We should hug more often.

"We're friends, aren't we?" I ask under my breath. It's too wonderful a question to say any louder.

She doesn't say anything, but I think she heard me anyway. She holds me close for a long, long time.

"Be my friend

Hold me

Wrap me up

Unfold me"

- "Breathe Me," Sia


	8. The Write Ins

Greetings, campers! We last left our friends with a visit from Effie and a promise that elections were coming up.

It's good to see you all again. You have been fabulous readers! Thank you so much for coming back to see what Katniss and Peeta have going on... I wish they would go ahead and get together already!

So, you know Suzanne Collins owns pretty much all of this. I made up the words "Panemians" and "Capitolites" (I think), and there is some extra stuff I created for this chapter, but otherwise it's her. Song lyrics hand-picked for this chapter are credited as appropriate. Now, let's get ready for some funnel cake!

* * *

><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 8: The Write-Ins**

"We are aging soldiers in an ancient war...

Asking if there's no heaven what is this hunger for?...

Time is brutal but a careless thief

Who takes our lot but leaves behind the grief...

Until we behold the pain become the pearl."

- "The Pearl," Emmylou Harris

We are eating breakfast at Katniss's house when Effie knocks on the door in a shiny, gold suit. Her hair is the same as yesterday except it has curls of something that looks like gold tinsel woven throughout; I can't tell if she added those or if it's an entirely separate wig. She looks very happy, though, and very clean compared to my mental image of her after overhearing all the splashing and squawking yesterday.

She joins us for breakfast, graciously accepting our compliments on her goldenness and launching directly into excited chatter about all the wonderful things they are doing with gold these days. When she's not looking, Katniss raises her eyebrows at me and I have to stifle a laugh.

"If you'll walk me up to the train station this afternoon," says Effie, "I'll bet you can pick up your ballots then. I requested some for you, and all the districts have the same imprint."

"The ballots? Really?" I don't know if I should be excited or apprehensive. It seems surreal, being involved in a semblance of democracy when we live not only in isolation but, in Katniss's case, in exile. The last vote we were involved in was around a table with Coin. It didn't go so well.

"You could even fill them out while you are at the station." Effie smiles helpfully. "Easy, easy, easy!"

It looks like Effie's effervescence is making Katniss a little green around the gills, so I offer to escort Effie on a stroll before we walk her to her train. When she accepts, Katniss's sigh of relief is so audible that she has to excuse herself for "yawning" at the table.

One thing I realize as Effie and I walk from the Victor's Village into town is that, slowly but surely, more and more people have been moving back into the district. I haven't really been paying attention, I guess, because there are at least twice as many people here as I thought. They have been working hard, too. The old square has been completely cleaned up, leaving two cracked but usable foundations, a poured slab, and a new wooden frame. Effie takes it all in quietly and reverently, but with a little smile on her face, her eyes darting around with ambitious vision.

"A clean start will be just the thing," she whispers, and it's all she says.

Katniss, Haymitch, and I all walk Effie to the station after lunch. Once her orange luggage has been loaded, she reminds us about our ballots, gives us each a tearful hug, and gathers her gold self onto the train.

Haymitch leaves without a word to either of us. Katniss walks right up to the mail counter and returns with two blue envelopes.

"Should we do them here?" I ask. "Or should we take them home?"

"Let's just take a look at them," Katniss says, handing one to me.

We take a seat on a bench and slide out our ballots.

"Are they serious?"

"_Coalescence_? Who came up with this?"

"Well, obviously not someone from 12. So probably a Capitolite."

"It's not an insult, I guess," Katniss considers. "But I don't like the idea of our district name being a pun, either."

"Me, neither."

She purses her lips and looks over her ballot. I find myself frowning at the District 4 proposals.

"_Oceanus _or _Cerulean_?" I murmur. For some reason, it seems inadequate. I guess that 4 just means more to me than blue water.

"Can you imagine calling Annie in Oceanus?" Katniss asks. It sounds funny when she says it, and she hears it; her nose wrinkles up.

"There's a space for write-ins."

"But wouldn't a lot of people have to write in the same name?"

"For it to win, yes. But you don't have to vote for a name you don't like."

"I'm tempted," she says, "to just vote on the Capitol and 13 and call it a day."

We stare at the blue papers another minute, then Katniss gets up and retrieves two pens from the mail counter. We say nothing else until our envelopes have been sealed and dropped in the out-going mail slot.

* * *

><p>Since the weather has turned cold, Katniss likes to come over early in the mornings to help me with my baking. She has no experience cooking with refined flour, but she likes to get her hands messy, so I usually leave her in charge of mix-ins: raisins, nuts, seeds, cheese.<p>

The girl can stalk a deer from thirty paces and not make a sound, but I swear she can't walk through a kitchen without emerging covered in flour. She doesn't even mix in the flour! I don't know how it happens; all I know is she spends hours at my house looking like a funnel cake.

She's mixing orange zest into a bread for Thom when I look up from the biscuits I've just pulled from the oven. Her braid is coming loose, and there's a smear of flour over her nose, but she remains focused on that bread. Her eyes are almost crossed, she's so intense. She looks so cute. I can't suppress my chuckle.

Katniss looks up, eyes wide and unsuspecting, so the stupid grin on my face stays in place a minute too long.

"What?"

"You just have a little flour," I say, gesturing vaguely.

"Where?" Her hand flies to her hair, then her chest, but she can't seem to find the flour. She looks at me with narrowed eyes, and my goofy expression is no help.

"It's um..." I gesture first to her nose, then her arm and generally everywhere.

"Well can you get me a towel or something?" she asks stoutly. I turn to get a clean one from a drawer as she scolds, "It's not very nice to laugh at me when I'm doing this to help you."

She's right. Here we are, headed for another fight, and it's all due to my -

POOF!

Just as I handed her the towel, my vision went all white. Flour. She's flour-bombed me. I can just barely get my right eye open to see her bent double, laughing so hard it's not even audible.

"It's not very nice to laugh at me when I was trying to help you," I echo, and she glances up at me, her face red and crinkled. That smudge is still across her nose, though, and under the circumstances, I couldn't keep from laughing if my life depended on it.

Katniss takes a big, noisy breath before her laughter peals, reminding me strangely of a church bell ringing in the early morning. She reaches forward with the towel and pats my left eye half-heartedly, holding her stomach with her free hand. She's unarmed.

"Thank you," I say, and her hand drops. She's still laughing, but it's already simmering down to a sporadic noise like a hiccup. So I rest my hand on the counter for a second before picking up an entire bowl of shelled pecans and dumping them over her head.

"You!" she squeals, jumping off her stool to grab some of the nuts from the floor and throw them after me as I run around the island. I dig a handful of oats out of the bin as I pass and chuck them blindly in her direction from my hiding spot below the counter. In response, a rain of sugar scatters down on the floor around me and under the collar of my shirt.

"Not sugar!" I yelp, and a second later comes another wave of sugar.

"That – is – going – to be – so – sticky!" I gasp, scrambling from my hiding spot, grabbing another bowl from the counter, and throwing the contents at Katniss as I come around the island to her side. But the raisins fly across an empty floor.

_Where did she go?_ I stop, looking over the counter and around the room.

"Gotcha!" shrieks Katniss from behind as a blow and then a cold, gooey sensation oozes down my head. I turn to face my egger, but she has disappeared again. When I rush forward, I start to slip in the mess on the floor, and I have to hang onto the counter to keep my balance.

"Where did you go?" I shout, trying to catch my breath as a stitch rises in my side and my cheeks begin to ache. I slip and slide as I make a full circle around the island with no sign of Katniss. Just as I'm about to give up, I turn around to another POOF! And footsteps slap-slap out of the kitchen.

Once my vision clears, I'm laughing too hard to say anything, and Katniss is noisily swallowing air near the living room, and when I let go of the counter, I slip easily to the floor. A minute later, Katniss crawls to my side through a swamp of sugar and pecans. She hands me the towel.

"You're wearing cake," she chuckles.

I wipe some of the batter off my face. "You still have flour on your nose."

She punches me in the arm.

"Did we ruin all of the bread, or just some of it?" I ask with my face in the towel. I'm probably doing nothing but smearing the mess around, but I can't help trying to clear my vision.

Katniss pulls herself up to peek over the countertop. "Just some of it. If Thom doesn't mind his orange spice with some pecans that may or may not have been on the floor, we're good."

"Gag. I keep a clean floor, but your grubby little feet have been all over it this morning, and one never knows where those have been."

"Careful. There's an entire bottle of molasses within arm's reach."

I raise my hands in surrender. "Fine, fine. Your feet are sterile little miracles, and my kitchen floor is blessed by their presence. Now, can you use them to help me clean up this mess?"

Katniss helps me to my feet, but our cleaning is cut short by the ringing of my phone. Since I am busy impersonating an underbaked dessert, Katniss runs to answer it.

"Mellark residence," she says in her best Capitol accent.

"Oh!" A pause. "Yes, hi, Effie. How are you?"

"Mmhmm. Oh, I see. Yes, thank you. We'll be sure to watch it." I lean out of the kitchen, and Katniss glances at me but doesn't react. "Yes, very exciting. Thank you." She glances at me again. "I'll be sure to tell him. You too. Goodbye."

"Be sure to tell me what?" I ask.

"What makes you think I was talking about you?" I can't tell if she's kidding. She changes the subject: "Effie says the election results are on this afternoon and we should be sure to have the TV on. I unhooked mine months ago. Does yours work?"

"I don't know," I admit. "I would guess so. I didn't tear out the cords or anything. Why don't you give it a try?"

Katniss grunts. "I'd rather not turn that thing on unless and until I have to." She frowns over her shoulder at the screen.

"Fine by me," I say. "Can you help me finish in here so I can go wash the egg out of my hair?"

The rest of the morning is quiet. Katniss lets me shower while she mops the floor, and afterward we whip up a soda bread for Thom to replace the victim of our food fight. I make my deliveries around the neighborhood, then we work on the memory book until lunch, but before long we can't stall anymore.

After sitting still and silent for a year and a half, it seems incredible that my television comes alive with the push of a single button.

Bright colors, loud sounds, the Capitol blares from the TV.

The hosts, Caesar Flickerman and a young woman with a high-pitched voice and purple butterfly wings on her eyes, chatter energetically about the incoming results. It is too early to tell who the winning representatives will be, or what the new district names are, but they are discussing the candidates and some early-forming trends.

"I have to say, Caesar, there have been some outstanding write-in campaigns in these elections."

"Oh, absolutely, Iolanthe. And our citizens deserve some real credit; it can be extremely difficult to give a write-in the majority vote."

"That said, would you say the write-ins are hopeless?" When she bats her eyes, Iolanthe's wings flutter. It's really disconcerting.

"Actually, to the contrary. I think some of these campaigns have a real shot at winning. Others, though, were doomed from the start." Caesar, who is dressed in an autumnal palette of browns, sets his hands on his knees. He looks as though he thinks he is delivering bad news.

"You are referring to the nominations of Katniss Everdeen for District 12 Representative?" asks Iolanthe.

"That I am. And who can think of District 12 without thinking of the Girl on Fire? But our little Mockingjay is recuperating at home," at this he looks straight at the viewing audience, "and as the representative position requires travel to the Capitol, that does disqualify her. But there were votes for her coming in from every district, Iolanthe, and I think that is just an incredible show of unity."

"Indeed. But there are other write-in campaigns, some which I daresay you believe may be successful."

The banter continues, but it is drowned in our shock. People voted for Katniss in a government position? My first impulse is that it is some sort of nasty trick to drag her to the Capitol under false pretenses, but the announcers just said that she can't take the office. In fact, they completely glossed over the fact that she has to remain here as part of her sentence for committing murder; instead, they were almost... sensitive.

"'Recuperating at home,'" Katniss repeats quietly as she stares blankly toward the screen. "_That_'s the reason I can't be a representative? Not because I'm criminally insane?" She gives me a puzzled look, her face pinched in confusion.

I don't know what to say to her except that maybe we missed something over the past year, but that much is obvious. We haven't done any interviews in almost a year, and every citizen was just allowed to vote on new names for all of the districts. Clearly some things have changed.

I look at her, nodding my head toward the TV. "Being criminally insane would improve your case, I think."

As Katniss rolls her eyes, a chime starts ringing and we turn back to the screen.

"We have some results!" cries Iolanthe. "These aren't final numbers, of course, but exit polls are showing leads for the following..." A map of the country pops on screen, with proposed district names floating over each region, some shaded green, some sort of red, others a washed-out gray. "The names in green, folks, are our leaders. The brighter the color, the stronger the lead is looking. As you can see, it's still too early to tell for many districts, but you will notice a few districts stand out..."

She's not kidding. Two districts are glowing with what look like unanimous votes, and one of them is favoring a write-in:

"_Odair_." District 4. Katniss breathes the name a split second after I realize what it says. They're naming the district for Finnick. For Annie, too; for his wife and child, who still live there, bearing the name. It wasn't even on the ballot! How many people must have decided on this for the name to glow such a bright green on the map? Who moved to award them this honor?

I feel a little choked up, and Katniss covers her mouth with her palm, her eyes wide and breath still. I just have time to see the other clear leader – District 13's _Endurance_, which was on the ballot – before the map blinks away and our friendly announcers return to discuss what we've just seen. I watch for quite a while before I realize that I'm not listening and have no idea what's going on except for the fact that District 4 has risen high in my estimation. All the names on the ballot were deliberately neutral and generally reflected the regional industries. None were meant to honor any individuals. And it blows my mind how, given the wartime diaspora of Panemians, anyone could orchestrate such a massive write-in campaign. I keep shaking my head, trying to rattle my brain into understanding.

But that is no match for our reactions to the final results.

Most of the districts were divided between the two proposed names, the ones on the ballot, and in the end, they voted for a predictable choice: _Carat Grove_ or _Silica Park _or _Arboria_. Katniss beams when the new name for District 11 is announced, _Pectore_, which our announcers explain is an old word for heart and soul.

District 12 blind-sides us with a write-in.

_The Pearl_, they call us. My mind veers for a moment to Effie, assuring us that coal could, under pressure, turn into pearls; but who did she tell that to – just sponsors, right? Did I repeat it on-screen? I almost start trying to figure out how many people might have heard that, or if all sorts of people think that it's true, but then I see the little photo in the corner of the screen. It's a still from some footage. A low-angled close-up of two hands and a pearl passing between them. I recognize the shot from therapy.

"That's for us," I murmur, barely feeling my lips move.

"I know."

"For the pearl I gave you in the Quell," I say.

"I know," she repeats. "Look how many votes there were."

Thousands, that's how many there were. I know for a fact that far fewer than one hundred people live here, and under a thousand made it out in the firebombing, so where did all these votes come from? Not just those of us from 12. Thousands of people used their second vote on _our_ district, to name it for _us_. I can't make sense of it. They don't know us. Do they think they do? Like we are the hot, celebrity couple from District 12? That would make sense if everyone had to pick a name for 12, but this was voluntary. Not to mention there have been no paparazzi, no interviews or film crews; surely, if the star-crossed lovers thing didn't die out when Katniss shot the wrong president, it would have fizzled away by now in the absence of news of us.

Then there's the fact that they didn't use our names, as 4 did with Odair, but a thing. Just a little thing, a tiny moment in the epic drama they got to watch unfold from the comfort of home. I resent them a little for being able to see moments like that one, so personal and heartfelt, and then not having to deal with all of the problems we got left with. Once they'd had enough, their TVs went dark and they turned away. But then I realize that the pearl doesn't symbolize some mythical transformation of coal or a gift between celebrity tributes. It's about love. I gave that pearl to Katniss as a gift of love, and she took it intending to give her life to save mine. That's what these people remember. They want to believe in that kind of love. It would be a shame for them to see us now, sitting on opposite ends of the couch, not having kissed in over a month. That kind of love does not exist.

As if she can hear my thoughts, Katniss turns to me with watery eyes.

"Thank you," she whispers and reaches over to grasp my hand in hers. To my surprise, a thrill of butterflies rises in my stomach. I give her hand a little squeeze. She scoots over to my end of the couch, and in one motion, she pulls her knees up to her chest, rests her head on my shoulder, and wraps one arm around me, hugging me against the back of the couch. Even though we are friends now, we don't usually touch like this.

"I didn't know they thought of us that way," she says with her cheek against my chest.

"As real lovers?" I ask.

Katniss picks her head up a fraction to frown at me. "As inspiration." Her head falls again, warm and heavy. I take a deep breath, and it comes out as a contented sigh.

_The Pearl_. It seems surreal. The renaming, the new government, the whole war, running the Capitol streets with Katniss, being kept prisoner, the Games, and more Games, and all the while having Katniss Everdeen right beside me. I can still remember her in that little, plaid dress. How did she get here on my couch in the Victors' Village of The Pearl? My free hand drifts up to her shoulder, holding her close. She stretches up and plants a kiss on my temple.

After a while, we turn off the TV, even though we have yet to find out who our new representative is. Katniss says she's had enough television for the day, and I would rather process my thoughts in quiet. The passage of time is a crazy thing. Who could have possibly guessed we would end up where we are now? Katniss gets up to get something from the kitchen, and as she goes, she looks back at me and smiles softly. For a brief second, I think I can see that flour on her nose again.

Okay, so maybe that kind of love doesn't exist. But I think, in time... it could.

"I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I'm close to something real

I wanna find something I've wanted all along

Somewhere I belong"

- "Somewhere I Belong," Linkin Park

* * *

><p><em>AN:_ I don't know how much I will refer to the other districts in the future, and hopefully I will remember to identify them, but the new names, as voted by the People of Panem, are as follows:

1 – Carat Grove

2 – Pax

3 – Silica Park

4 – Odair

5 – Avalon

6 – Via

7 – Arboria

8 – Ardelis

9 – Golden Valley

10 – Meadowview

11 – Pectore

12 – The Pearl

13 – Endurance

Capitol – Columbia (Which, as Caesar noted while the kids weren't paying attention, is an old symbol of freedom and opportunity from before the Dark Days!)

I had a lot of trouble with this chapter. I hope you couldn't tell, but if you could, I apologize. I had a pet fall ill, and after $400 at the vet and five days of syringe feedings, she still didn't survive. Since I wanted this to be a fairly light-hearted chapter (Poor Peeta really needs some hope and laughter!), it took some effort on my part. Thank you for sticking with me.


	9. Magic

Happy Memorial Day to all my fellow Americans! This chapter is for all our brothers and sisters who have made sacrifices for cause and country. *heart* As Katniss & Peeta are surviving veterans of their own war, I know they would join me in this dedication.

Thank you to all of you who shared your sweet condolences with me last time. Buttercup is so overjoyed with all the animal lovers out there, he can hardly stand it! He will demonstrate this with what will appear to human eyes as cool indifference, but we'll know. ;)

Also, hugs and a hearty thanks to everyone who left a review after the last chapter, and hugs to the other invisible people who didn't say anything. There were hundreds of you. You know who you are.

One more thing before we begin: You might be aware that the name Madge often is a diminutive (shortened form) of Margaret. But did you know that the meaning of the name Margaret is "pearl?" Hmm...

Aaaaand all the characters and associated material belong to the talented Ms. Collins, while the lyrics are credited as appropriate (and a little tricky in this chapter, but I did my best). Roll 'em!

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><p><em><strong>Smoke Rising<strong>_** Chapter 9: Magic**

"Far away, long ago,

Glowing dim as an ember,

Things my heart used to know

Once upon a December"

- "Once Upon a December," Written by Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty for the movie _Anastasia_

Thanks to the publicity we've gotten in the form of having a district named in our honor, Katniss and I start hearing from all corners of Panem. The phone calls come first, most of them from old friends – Annie, Johanna, and Mrs. Everdeen, of course – then letters. Delly's pen script is as soft and friendly as she is. I even hear from Gale Hawthorne, though his note is so short it hardly merits the postage: "Glad to hear your doing well – G. Hawthorne." I actually checked the envelope to make sure I hadn't missed the first page.

I thought Katniss was answering phone calls these days, but she is at my house most of the time, so she can't be talking to many people. I don't know if that's deliberate or if she just doesn't care. She prefers to sit at my table and work on the memory book or attempt a session in my kitchen without a repeat of the flour incident.

Flour, by the way, has become a bit of a joke between us. I keep a towel at her work station, and she uses it religiously. If she gets flour on the counter – and she always does – Katniss wipes it up quickly. She acts like she doesn't want me to see, but I do, so I always make a point of letting her know she has some flour... _just there_. Narrowing her eyes, she informs me that she _does not_, but when I look away to smile to myself, I can see her out of the corner of my eye, furiously working that towel over her face and hair and down her arms as well. In return for my fun, the towel always finds itself into some odd spot, leaving flour sprinkled into the corner behind the toaster or in the middle of a stack of clean dishes.

"The Pearl" is one of our jokes too. When I find Katniss buried under her bedclothes one morning while the phone rings off the hook, I answer the phone for an hour, politely telling caller after caller that Miss Everdeen is indisposed. It's a wonderfully vague word, and no one asks for more detail; they simply apologize and wish her a speedy recovery. With the phone quieted, Katniss starts feeling more like herself. By lunchtime, she is downstairs, clean, dressed, and braided.

"Thank you," she says softly from the bottom step. "I was going out of my mind." She doesn't use that phrase lightly, and I know she means it. "I really owe you."

"No problem," I say. "But if you'd like to name a district after me, that would be great."

I thought the look on her face at that moment was priceless, but it's even better when she's the comedian. She likes to throw the word "pearl" in where it doesn't belong. First, it replaced the word "girl," as in, "when I was a little pearl." But then it started popping up in odd places. "I'm going to the woods tomorrow. Do pearl want to come?" "Remind me to pearl down my heavy coat from storage." "I'd like to stay longer, but I should get up pearly tomorrow morning." Sometimes I don't even notice what she has just said until I see the lit-up, restrained look on her face, the one that says she's bursting for me to react. I don't think she could ever look more adorable than she does when she makes her Pearl Face. Not even with flour on her nose.

I think what I enjoy most about these faces of Katniss is how different they are from the way I think of her, all intense and serious. Instead of taking aim with a deadly weapon, I get to see her staring down a lump of dough like it might pounce at any moment. Instead of folding into herself as she counts every drop of blood she thinks she's spilled, she's holding herself back, trying so hard not to be the first to laugh at her own joke.

She's eating more, too. Which is great, because she was getting so thin I kept seeing the desperate, soaked girl I took a beating for a few years ago. It scared the hell out of me.

And you know, if she just ate, and stayed completely still, she might actually gain some weight. But if she's not running around in the woods, she's herding geese up the street or helping me cover our planters with sheets to protect them from the incoming snow.

When the snow finally arrives, it's a crisp, chilly night. The moon is bright and full, shining on the clouds as they roll in, all gray and heavy. I watch them from bed, where I have piled two extra blankets on top of what I have been using, but I can't stop the shivering.

Slowly, the clouds creep, creep, creep until they block out the moon. Then my window begins rattling in the wind, and I nod off to the whooshing sound outside. When I wake with a start (Katniss fell from a hundred-story pine, _again_), I realize that the ominous weather has been replaced by a peaceful silence. Hopping from my bed to wipe the frosty pane with my fingers, I peek out into a street glazed in white. The snow is fine and powdery and blowing around in big swirls. _Like flour_, I joke to myself, and suddenly I wish Katniss were awake.

The more I think about it, the more I want her to see the snow. _She's sure to see it in the morning_, I tell myself. _There will be more snow this year._ But I want her to see _this_ snow. _Now._

I pull on my robe and pull myself together before stumbling down the dark hall for the phone. She doesn't answer, of course. Even if sleep made her forget she isn't answering phone calls, she would still have to get out of bed to answer it, just like I had to come to the den to call her.

Well, there's only one thing to do.

Why I didn't think to pull on some real clothes before showing up on Katniss's porch in my pajamas, a robe, and a coat, I have no idea. But, thankfully, she answers the door after I've spent only three or four minutes knocking with numb fingers.

"Are you okay?" she asks, clearly alarmed and stepping back to let me in.

"Yeah," I answer, sort of embarrassed but still mostly invigorated by the snow. "I just wanted you to see the snow storm."

Katniss, who has already closed the door firmly against the cold, steps toward the door again so she can see out the window. "Oh, yeah."

_Oh, yeah?_

"Is it as early as I think it is?" she asks, still looking out.

"Um, about three thirty, I think." I saw a clock when I got up, but I wasn't really paying attention.

Katniss sighs. "You came over in your pajamas in the middle of a snow storm at three thirty in the morning to make sure I saw the bad weather?"

"Well... I tried to call first." That's beside the point. "It reminded me of flour." I expect her to laugh, but she doesn't, and my own chuckle dies in my throat.

She turns away from the window then and gives me a sad sort of look. "Are you sleeping all right?"

"What?" _Just look at the snow._

"Sleeping. I mean, are you having bad dreams? You used to have nightmares and -"

"That has nothing to do with this," I say, crossing my arms and taking a step back toward the door. She's what, mothering me now?

"How did you happen to notice it was snowing in the middle of the night, then?"

"I was asleep. I just -" _woke up from a nightmare._ "I just wanted you to see it."

"Okay, I've seen it. Thank you." She speaks the words gently but brusquely, letting me know it's time to leave.

"I'm sorry," I say, groping the door behind me for the knob.

"Wait, don't go back out in that," she begins, but I catch the knob in my hand, give it a yank, and throw myself back outside into the night.

The morning is calm and cold, and I hear Katniss head out before dawn to do souls-know-what in the woods.

I take my time getting up and to work, because I ache from my midnight craze and also because I am finally warm and I'm afraid to come out from under the five blankets. Surely my neighbors won't be expecting me to go hiking door-to-door in the snow. I'm not always steady on my feet as it is.

But the morning is bright and clear, so I'm just lying awake in bed, and that's when I hear it.

Magic. It has to be. Nothing in the world sounds so pure.

I'm downstairs in a flash, tripping a bit at the bottom and pulling my coat around me as I throw my front door open. Stepping out into the frosty morning, I see two children, bundled up and leaning over in Katniss's front yard, beckoning to a rather unsure-looking orange cat. Buttercup pulls away, but the younger one keeps reaching forward, and the older one giggles. Oh, that magic sound!

"Here, kitty," she says, a puff of white breath visible from where I stand. I duck inside, grab a bit of something from the chiller and my apron from the hook, and scuff down the front steps in my house shoes.

"Try this," I say genially, handing over the blob of grease. The smaller child, a little boy, starts to reach for it with a mittened hand, but the girl stops him.

"You'll spoil your mittens," she chides. "Mom'll be right sore with you."

The little boy looks uncertainly at her, then at the cat, then at me and my grease. Buttercup eyes the grease as well. I know he can tell it's from bacon. "You could take off a mitten for a minute," I suggest.

His tiny, trusting face gazes up at me before he decides to take my advice and reaches a small hand into mine so he can tempt the cat.

"Here, kitty," he whispers, reaching toward Buttercup, and in a moment he has made a new friend.

"He's very picky," I tell the little boy. "He doesn't like a lot of people, but he likes how you just gave him a treat."

"He's like Miss Katniss," the girl says. "She doesn't like a lot of people, either, does she?" I have to look up from my crouch next to the boy, but I can see this girl is asking innocently. "He's Miss Katniss's kitty, isn't he?"

"Yes, he's Miss Katniss's kitty," I repeat. "But he's a good bit meaner than Miss Katniss." I reach over and wipe the little boy's hand clean with my apron so he can put his mitten back on, and then I stand up. "And you can see even he's not so bad if you're patient with him."

The little girl seems to ponder this for a moment, watching Buttercup lick his squashed nose while the little boy pats his head. "I'm Calla," she says, stretching a fluffy, white mitten toward me.

"I'm Peeta," I say, taking it.

"I know who you are, Mr. Peeta," she giggles. "Mom says we came all the way here just so we could buy your bread. But Daddy says we came here 'cause there's work that needs doin'."

"I suspect your Daddy's right," I say, flattered. "Is this your brother?"

She wrinkles her nose, glancing at the boy. "Yeah. His name is Marshall. He's just four, though. I'm seven!" she boasts.

"I'll bet you're a very good big sister," I coddle. "I had some brothers myself. Brothers are big pains sometimes, but there's no one better to play in the snow with."

Calla nods as though I have just spoken a universal truth. Marshall has gotten his mitten back on, but he still gazes hopefully at Buttercup, who seems to have lost interest in the children and is wandering slowly across the yard.

"Would you two do me a favor?" I ask, and both children look at me, eyes wide and nodding vigorously. "I have some muffins at my house. Would you please take them to your mother?"

Within minutes, I have them loaded up and on their way home with a paper sack of muffins and a warning to be careful walking in the snow.

As soon as they go, I am in my kitchen, mixing up a huge batch of cookies. I can't decide between cinnamon bears or orange tigers, so I make both.

Children in the district again! They were playing in the snow! And laughing! It feels so good I laugh myself, alone with piles of animal cookies.

The next day, I start out for my deliveries in what has become icy slush but instead find two dozen people waiting in my front yard. I stop short.

"I'd like to order some white rolls," calls one, two slim coins pinched in his fingers.

"And I'd like some crescents," chimes another, waving a paper bill over her head.

I'm speechless, rooted to my steps. One by one, folks start shouting their orders at me, offering prices and forming a line. Their breath puffs into the air and their faces are red with cold. How long have they waited for me?

"I'm flattered," I tell them at last. "But I can't possibly fill all these orders today."

One hand raises a fistful of bills. "I'll pay -"

"I don't want your money," I argue. "It's just a matter of time and resources."

There is a murmur among the crowd. I'm afraid they are going to get nasty with me, demanding I meet their needs, but after several moments, a balding man steps forward and pulls a pad of paper from his pocket. "If we agreed to let you fill just a few orders per day, would you be able to do that?"

That's what I do now, really, so I give him a nod.

"All right then. Folks, one at a time, please. Leave your address, order, and the day you'd prefer to get your goods."

And just like that, they all move forward, peacefully leaving their requests while I stand there with my mouth hanging open. I don't have to do anything. Many, as they wait or just before turning for home, inquire politely after my health, after Katniss's, or if I plan on building a storefront in town. I have to admit that I hadn't thought a full bakery necessary, but I am starting to reconsider. One woman replies quietly that her son is old enough to help out, if I need another pair of hands. Another steps forward and extends a hand of her own.

"I'm Vera Ruth," she says with a warm smile. "I believe you met my children yesterday."

"Calla and Marshall!" I exclaim, taking the woman's hand in what I hope is a hearty shake. It's been a long time since I've had to shake hands, unless you count my recent introduction with the seven-year-old. "Beautiful children, Mrs. Ruth."

"Vera, please." Her hands are tough but not in an unpleasant way. She's a very handsome woman, and young, only thirty at the most. "They sure took a shinin' to you. You're all they talked about till bedtime."

"They left an impression on me, too. In fact – do you mind if I step inside a minute? You can come along if you like."

"Oh, thank you, but I'd better be on my way."

"I'm sorry to keep you. I just wanted to give you something before you go." I make for the door and hold it open for her, but Vera just nods me forward with a quizzical eye. I return in a moment with a paper bag.

"I made these for the kids yesterday," I tell her, handing over the package, "but I realized a little late that I don't know where you live."

"We're just the first house in town," says Vera with a wave in that general direction. The scent coming from the bag must pique her curiosity, because she rolls open the corner to peek in. "Oh, well aren't you sweet! You'll have my little ones over here every day if you're gonna send 'em home with cookies!"

"I wouldn't mind that a bit," I assure her. "I'm sorry, did you say you live in town?"

"Well, yes. Just finished the building last week. Couldn'a had better timing, with winter rolling in like it did, wouldn't you say?"

I would definitely say that, yes. "Is your building finished? Are you warm enough? Is anyone down there trying to live in unfinished houses?" Suddenly I feel selfish, living in my huge house all by myself. It made sense for families to live together in the vacant houses in the Village, but last I saw of town, none of the structures were livable. I have all these empty rooms...

Vera laughs delicately. "We're all fine down there, Mr. Peeta. Warm and dry."

"If you need anything, you'll let me know, won't you?" I feel sick at the thought of those kids being cold and hungry. This is supposed to be a new era. District Tw- er, The Pearl... is not going to know hunger again, if I can help it.

"Vera, I've just remembered something and I'd like to apologize. Your little girl told me yesterday you said you were here for my bread, and I'm sending you home today for the second time with day-old goods. I swear next time will be fresh. What day did you sign up for?"

"Oh-ho, no worries," she chuckles. "I have faith even in your day-old stuff. Those muffins were heaven, these cookies smell delicious, and when we start getting our rolls on _Thursdays_," she pauses to wink, "I know they will be the highlight of our week."

"Rolls on Thursdays. Got it. I'll be sure to have something for Calla and Marshall as well. Does your husband like anything in particular?"

"Persi? No, he's pretty easy to please. We lived a pretty comfortable life in 11, better than most, so our dinner table is used to variety. But there's no baker left in Pectore, and Persi heard about the reconstruction here, and we decided to make a go of things here in The Pearl." At this, Vera gives me what I can only describe as a knowing smile.

"What does your husband do, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Ah, well, he was a horticulturist in 11. Here he's mostly been doing physical labor, raising buildings and the like. But he's had his eye on the local agriculture. Your soil's not the best, but I think he has some ideas. Certainly liked the look of your sheets," she nods to my tented planters. "I'm sure he'd love to discuss it with you sometime. As for me, I'd better get on home. Persi's watching the babies and he'll be wantin' to get to work."

We say our goodbyes, and Vera trudges down the slushy sidewalk toward town. A short while later, I'm handed the list of orders, neatly divided among the days of the week. Only about four each day, which I'm sure I can handle. I just didn't realize people were living in town already. If the district is growing, how long will I be able to bake from home without more help than a mix-in girl?

I don't really want more help than my mix-in girl. I like finding her towel stuffed into the wires of my whisk.

Speaking of whom, guess who lets herself in while I'm re-figuring my deliveries for the day.

"'Morning," says Katniss, dropping her game bag at the door and starting to pull at her slushy boots.

"Well look who decided to show up," I say. "You missed all the excitement."

I show her my standing orders.

"Wow," she says, her fingertips gently holding the edges of my list. "Everyone wants to taste your goodness, huh?"

I glance at her, expecting to see a blush, but her focus remains on the papers in her hand. I'm impressed that she can make a crack like that with a straight face. Could Katniss Everdeen be losing her naïveté?

Then her eyes go wide and her face turns crimson. Her eyes shut tight. "I mean your goods." A hand goes to her face and she turns away. "Your _baked_ goods. The good things you bake!"

I try not to laugh for her sake, but it's too damn funny. "I don't know that _everyone_ wants a taste of my goods," I tease.

Katniss moans some mild curses, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes as if to scrub something out of her vision. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry; I haven't been myself lately." She stops her blind pacing and whirls around to face me.

"That reminds me," she says, all seriousness now. "I'm sorry about the other night. I was cranky. That wasn't fair of me, bringing up your nightmares. Especially since..." she swallows. "Especially since I have them, too."

"I know," I say. I don't mention how I can hear her screams from my own bed. If she wonders, she can ask, but I don't want to embarrass her by bringing it up.

She doesn't ask, but she does give me a questioning look before offering, "If you ever want to talk about it..."

"I don't think they're really something you should hear." No one should have to listen to the hundred ways she dies each night. "But thank you. I appreciate the gesture."

Katniss nods in understanding. "Just remember, then. I have them too." She reaches out and squeezes my hand. When her hand drops away, I stop her.

"Can we just...?" Slowly I stretch down to touch her fingers gingerly with mine. Katniss smiles and lets me get a better grasp.

"Next time it snows, you should definitely come wake me up."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." Her hand jiggles mine playfully.

"What if it's daytime?" I ask.

She laughs. "Then drag me outside."

"What if you're out hunting?"

"Then I'll know already!"

"But I won't know that you know," I say. "I'd have to find you to know that you know it's snowing."

"Then come find me," she says. "I'll know you're in the woods the second all my game disappears."

"You'll know before then because I'll be yelling for you."

Katniss giggles and tosses my hand away. "You really do want me to fail at hunting!"

"Katniss!" I call out in a louder voice, raising my hands to form a cup at my mouth. "Kat- NISS! It's SNOWING!"

She laughs harder, giving me a shove that says _Stop it; no, go on_. I'm working up a second chorus of "It's SNOWING, Katniss!" when she looks over my shoulder and gasps.

"It's snowing, Peeta!" And her voice is no shout, just barely more than a whisper. I turn from her gape to see the fat, white flakes drifting slowly into my backyard.

"Well, come on!" she says, grabbing my hand again and pulling me into the foyer, where her slushy boots lie scattered next to my upright, dry ones. While I'm working on my second boot, she grabs a coat and gloves from the hall closet and holds them out to me, waiting. I stand, taking the gloves and then slipping the coat on.

"Thank you."

"You're just so slow," she says with a grin.

And yet I'm the first one outside.

"Mm," she hums, standing next to me with her face turned up to meet the snowflakes as they kiss her, one by one, _melting at her touch_. I don't know why I think about these things. I try to focus on the wintry sky. It's such a clean and peaceful feeling, standing in the snow.

"Go ahead and ask me," she says after a while, lowering her chin to look at me. When I meet her gaze, her eyes dart down the street to a spot I remember from my walk when I first arrived home. I almost had some sort of flashback there.

I look back to Katniss. "You kissed me in the snow," I say. "Real?" I don't even give her the option to deny it. She wouldn't have been able to prompt me for the question if it were Not Real. And furthermore, I really want this one to be true.

"Real." Katniss nods. "It was on-camera, though."

It's strange, but I feel a little disappointed. Most of our kisses – most of everything we did together – happened on camera. And even if she meant it then, that hardly matters now.

"I almost cried," she admits suddenly. "You were perfect every moment, and I was just trying to play a part."

The sting outweighs the compliment, but I try to smile. "You don't have to play any parts anymore," I say, remembering Effie's visit as I do.

"You never did," says Katniss, surrounded in white, pink at her nose and her cheeks and her lips, and I know that she's right.

"If you feel guilty, cut it out, okay? I don't remember anyway."

I meant for this to make her feel better, but she just looks sadder. I guess a reminder that I don't remember the majority of our history together, at least, not as it actually happened, doesn't exactly comfort her.

"It's not really about the guilt, Peeta," she says somberly. "Though I certainly have enough of that. It's an emotional memory for me..." _and you don't have it_. She doesn't say it, but I hear it well enough.

"Then I'm glad we can talk about it," I say. She still wears a frown, so I take her gently by the elbow and turn her back toward the house. "Come help me get my deliveries ready," I say, "and you can tell me more. Now, what was this about me being perfect?"

"That was the old you," Katniss replies as I open the door. "You know. Before everyone wanted to taste your goods."

"Snowflakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes,

Silver-white winters that melt into springs:

These are a few of my favorite things."

"My Favorite Things," Written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, II, for the musical _The Sound of Music_

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><p><em><strong>AN: **_I apologize for the abundance of italics in this chapter. You are welcome to play connect-the-italics, but I can't guarantee that it will draw anything special. And, all my fellow grammar police officers, the misspelling in Gale's note is character error; he doesn't seem like the type of guy to care about the difference between _your_ and _you're_.


	10. Hands, a Knee, and a Half Nelson

Wow, if that didn't take forever! So sorry for the wait. I don't know what happened; this chapter just took a really long time to finish. I did read _Graceling_, which I recommend to all of you, and I saw _Magic Mike_, which I only recommend if you are over 17 winkwink and can go with friends, but I really don't think either of those are responsible for the delay.

Special thanks to **ktface3**, who recommended my short story, _I Always Land on My Feet: Buttercup's Story_ on her Tumblr. It made my week! She has some great THG fics herself, so check her out!

Also, I have a love note for all of you at the end of the chapter, so please read that. It's a special request. Pretty, pretty please?

And the disclaimer: all the good characters and associated material belong to Suzanne Collins, and lyrics are credited as appropriate. There is a worty dird in here, but we are rated T, so we should be okay. Thank you for reading!

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><p><em><strong>Smoke Rising<strong>_** Chapter 10: Hands, a Knee, and a Half Nelson**

"I want to hold your hand.  
>And when I touch you I feel happy inside."<br>- "I Want to Hold Your Hand," The Beatles

When I shut my eyes, I see them.

Holding arrows. Kneading bread. Pulling Buttercup from the table. Grabbing my fingers in the snow.

Her hands. I can't stop thinking about her hands.

It's senseless, I know. She doesn't have special hands or anything. She usually has dirt under her nails and has to scrub forever before I'll let her touch anything in my kitchen. Her thumbs are kind of stubby, out of proportion with her long fingers. There are calluses from her bow on half of her right hand. She has three freckles on that hand, one on her left. Nothing amazing. The only thing amazing here is that I know all this.

It's not that I'm in love with her or anything. I shouldn't confuse myself by thinking things like that. It's just the fact that I feel comfortable with her now, since we're friends and all, and part of me still remembers being able to hold her hand any time I felt like it, so now that I've held her hand a couple times, my imagination is running away with me.

It's the same with her lips. I have solid memories of her lips now, and with the muscle memory and my imagination... That's why I find myself thinking about them. Her lips. Her hands. What it would be like to feel them again.

It's a problem. Really. I find myself staring. I completely lose focus on what I'm doing and just watch her fingers move over a twist of dough. I have no idea what she's saying because I'm obsessed with her mouth.

"What?" There I go again.

"I said, shouldn't you take your cane? There's a lot of ice on the ground." She looks concerned.

"If you can walk it, I can," I assure her. "I need my hands to carry the orders." Keeping my hands full will mean they are behaving themselves.

"I can carry them," she says, frowning.

I laugh. "Oh, you'll have your hands full enough. Between the Brownings, Mr. Leland, and the Ruths."

"I just worry..." she begins, but then she sees my glare and thinks better of the second half of her sentence. "I could always put some in my game bag."

"You want to put fresh, clean food into a bag you use to carry dead, bloody animals all over town?" I make a face. "Why don't you carry yours, and I carry mine, and you stop worrying about me?"

Katniss looks uncertain, but she purses her lips and picks up her load.

I'm really quite steady on my feet these days, but Katniss was right about the ground; it's like a sheet of ice just came down and settled over everything. Our boots, thankfully, offer some traction, but it's pretty slow going and still a struggle to keep ourselves upright.

"Can't you have your customers pick up their orders at your house?" Katniss asks as we slip-slide up the street. "It doesn't seem right, on days like this, that you're running all over the district making deliveries."

"I could," I agree, "but then we'd have people traipsing up to my house all the time."

Even though Katniss is ahead of me, I can see her cringe at the thought. "You could set up business hours," she suggests.

"I'm not a business, though," I remind her. "I just bake because I like to, and I give them their orders because they've asked for them. I don't live in a bakery, just a house. I can't have business hours for my house!"

We climb the steps to the Browning house and I knock at the door.

"You feel obligated to run on a schedule," says Katniss, "and, to me, that says you're running a business. Not just doing your neighbors a favor."

I wait until Rion shuts the door with his bag of rolls and we turn back toward the street before answering. "I don't feel obligated. I do it because I like to."

"You do it because you think it's your job."

"Whatever. You have your own part in this, you know." My eyes find her hand wrapped around two parcels and linger too long. I snap my attention back to the icy minefield we navigate to the Staten house. Katniss huffs her frustration with me for being right.

Mrs. Staten wants to chat but won't ask us in, so we stand out in the cold while she holds the door open. I think she must be getting hot flashes, but Katniss grumbles that she's just rude and crazy. I think the pot is calling the kettle black, but the pot is still holding half of my orders, so I keep my mouth shut. The Ruths' package is on the bottom. I can tell because of the bulge where a half-dozen sugar cookies rest against Katniss's pink-mottled palm.

"Are you cold?" I ask. "We can go back and get you some gloves."

But Katniss shakes her head, her hands tightening around the crisp paper.

As we skate into town, passing by new steel frames and lean-tos and tiny manufactured homes, I say, "I've been thinking of rebuilding the bakery."

"In town?" Her voice gets caught in the wind. We have to shout to be heard.

"Well, yeah," I call out.

"Why?"

I frown. "That's where the reconstruction is happening, for one thing. I realize that most of my 'customers,' as they are, are in the Village still, but as more people return to the district -"

"I get all that," she interrupts. "I just don't understand why you would _want_ to be in town." Her back is to me and her pace over the ice quickens to an impossible march. We can't keep up the shouting over a distance, and I can't follow at her pace, so I impulsively lunge out to grab her arm.

I don't know if my grabbing her throws her off balance, or if I run into her as she comes to a stop, but the next thing I know, there is an elbow in my ribs, then a foot kicking mine out from under me, and neither Katniss nor I can keep our feet planted on this ice. I try to keep her from falling directly on the ground, but it's useless. We are sprawled out before we can wonder which way is up.

The second we hit, I hear Katniss's intake of breath, and my heart jumps to my throat.

_Shit. _"I'm sorry, Katniss. Souls!" Our limbs are a little tangled. I try to collect myself so I'm not pinning her down, but as I pull my leg back, she hisses like a viper.

"What is it?" I ask, trying to sit up so I can see.

"I'm fine." She says this through gritted teeth, though any fool can see her clutching her left knee, where her pant leg looks damp and dirty.

"No, you're not," I say. "Let's take a look."

"I said I'm fine," says Katniss, more forcefully this time, making as if she's going to stand up.

I realize this is a girl who can face insurmountable odds, conquer all her fears, show courage in situations that would make grown men weep, and survive a battle of wits and strength with injuries on every major part of her body. But there is no reason for her to walk on this sore leg. Not today.

"Katniss," I say with the sternest voice I can muster, "sit down."

She glares at me, but then she winces, and finally she lowers her body and twists around to sit. Folding up Katniss's pant leg reveals an angry red knee.

I don't realize that I am alternating a stream of curses and apologies until I hear a chuckle behind me.

"Well, Mr. Peeta, did you have to drag Miss Katniss down here to meet us, or have y'all had a little slip on the ice?" Two huge, ridiculous-looking shoes step around me before Vera crouches down to get her arm under Katniss's shoulders and, with no apparent trouble at all, is able to get the two of them standing on the slick ground.

"Come on, dear, let's get you inside," Vera says gently.

"I'm fine," protests Katniss. "It's not broken." But she lets Vera guide her up to the open door in the little house. I collect our dropped packages and find they are not too damp, hopefully salvageable, and slip up the street after the women.

As I shut the door behind me, Vera says, "Mr. Peeta, I don't believe I have been introduced to your companion."

My companion looks uncomfortable, but she is already reclining on a tiny couch in the small living room by the front door.

"Katniss," I say politely, "this is Vera Ruth. Her children are fond of Buttercup, and I am fond of them."

Vera smiles graciously. "It's such a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Katniss."

Katniss forces a smile, but it looks much more like a grimace. "Me, too."

"Are the kids here?" I ask while Vera pulls a stool up beside the couch and examines Katniss's leg.

"Oh, they're around here somewhere," Vera answers, her voice melodic as though she knows something I do not. And sure enough, out of the corner of my eye I notice two small shapes slinking in from the kitchen doorway. Calla's face is all o-shaped as she approaches the couch on silent stocking feet.

"Is Miss Katniss okay?" she whispers, eyes as big and round as the cookies I brought for her and Marshall.

"Did she fall, Mama?" asks the little boy, hiding behind his sister.

"You two remember what I said about being careful on the ice?" says Vera. "Well it can even knock down Miss Katniss, so y'all remember that when you go outside, you hear?"

"Yes, Mama," answers Calla. Marshall just stares at Katniss. Both children become statues while their mother examines Katniss's knee.

"Calla, will you do me a favor, Sweet Pea? Please get your boots and coat on and take a kitchen towel outside. Gather up a nice, big snowball in the towel and bring it back in for Miss Katniss, will you?"

"Yes'm." Calla disappears into the hall, and a moment later, she clomp-clomp-clomps into the kitchen and out through a door I haven't seen yet but can locate by its creak.

"I'm better at snowballs," grumbles Marshall, folding his little arms in front of his chest.

"Well, you can go help, then, Marsh," Vera replies, looking away from Katniss, who has been watching everything with a silent scowl.

As soon as he's gone, the woman gives her prognosis: "I'm afraid you might have yourself a sprain, Miss Katniss. You're probably going to have to stay off your feet for a couple days at least. Maybe longer."

"What? How long? Are you a healer?"

"Well, no, ma'am. I'm no healer, not a doctor, just a mother. I seen some bumps and bangs, and you got yourself quite a blow to the knee. It'll be best to ice it several times today and again tomorrow and to see how it feels after."

"Maybe I should call my mother," says Katniss. "She's a healer."

"Yes, ma'am. You should." I feel bad for Vera, who is blushing now. "But we don't have a phone, Miss Katniss."

The color drains from Katniss's face. Either she had forgotten that only the Village is outfitted with phones, or she has realized how rude she is being. Her mouth hangs open a little, but she doesn't say anything else.

"We understand," I say hurriedly. "We'll see what Mrs. Everdeen has to say once you get Katniss fixed up. We're very grateful for your help, Vera."

Vera nods and then the children return carrying the biggest snowball I have ever seen without the rest of a snowman beneath it. After a liberal icing, the knee is wrapped snugly and Vera releases Katniss to my care. I apologize for the sorry state of their order, but it's clear that deliveries are done for the day, so I leave the last couple of parcels with the Ruths. The cookies go over well, anyway. We are lent some of those ridiculous snow shoes and a walking stick for the trek home.

It takes a long time for us to hobble up the hill. I have trouble walking with the bizarre shoes on; although slipping is no longer a problem, the shoes are awkward and my hands are full. Katniss doesn't say much, but she lets me hold her tightly about the waist all the way home. It's a shame that I have to let go once we've reached her living room.

Vera's prescription was a good one. Mrs. Everdeen agrees with the ice, compression, rest, and elevation, but she extends the sentence, warning Katniss to stay off her feet for a couple of weeks.

"That is not going to happen," Katniss says once the phone is back on the cradle. I'm making her lie down on her sofa while I bring her some lunch. "Weeks without hunting? Without helping you bake?"

I can't let her walk over every morning to bake. Not on that knee. Not in this weather. "Don't worry about my baking. I can manage without you for a little while."

It's like I've stuck a pin in her, Katniss deflates so completely. She throws an arm over her face.

"Why do you have to build your bakery in town?" she asks. If I didn't know better, I would say she's whining. When I set a plate and mug on the coffee table, Katniss sits up. The corners of her mouth point down and she stares at her grimy fingernails.

"I'm sorry," I say. I don't know what I'm apologizing for, but it seems like the right thing to do. "I thought we agreed it made the most sense. Since I'm basically running a business out of my home now, and more and more people are moving to -"

"I know it makes the most _sense_," interrupts Katniss. "But I don't _want you to_." She adjusts the bandage around her knee. "I don't want to be alone up here. I mean, I know I wouldn't be really alone, but shouldn't we stick together? I like being able to walk over and help in your kitchen. I don't know why you have to move all the way to town. I can't imagine it; me living up here, and you back in town again."

"Hold on, Katniss. I think you misunderstood. I'm not rebuilding my parents' bakery. I'm not going to live there. I don't even know if I'm going to want an apartment above the shop. I only want to build myself a new bakery in a convenient location with a kitchen that can meet the demands of the growing district."

Katniss blinks. "You aren't moving?"

I shake my head.

"You're sure?"

I laugh. "Positive. You can still help me bake, though. Even if my kitchen is all the way in town."

She frowns but doesn't actually object.

"As long as you stay off your feet for now," I caution. "We don't want you to lose a leg if we can help it." I give her a wink, but Katniss groans.

We work out a system for getting her bathed and fed and so on with minimal effect on her knee. It requires cooperation on my part, of course, which I don't mind but Katniss finds depressing. However, I do manage to keep her off her feet most of the time she has agreed to it, so I feel pretty good about it. Days pass. I miss having Katniss around to help with my orders, but I'm over at her house morning, noon, and night. It's not a bad situation, if it helps her heal. But Katniss would probably disagree.

* * *

><p>Everyone agrees to take their orders early so that I can take a day off for Yule, so I make a point of baking up a huge batch of gingerbread, which I bring around on the days leading up to the holiday. Katniss tries one of my first loaves and announces that it is "acceptable," which I decide is a compliment only after I see that she has eaten the whole thing.<p>

Yule dawns, snowy but bright. I am in charge of the dinner bread and dessert, of course. Katniss, who is allowed some walking now, works with Sae on a vegetable. Around midmorning, some sort of roast animal is delivered to my door, wrapped in paper and hung with a tag that President Paylor has signed, wishing Katniss and me a warm holiday. A few hours later, another strange beast arrives from Columbia: Effie trudges in under a mound of white fur. She brings two bottles of sparkling wine, each of which wears a red, satin bow. Although Haymitch threatened to bring one of his geese on a platter, he surprises us all by handing out peppermints and candied orange peel instead.

And so my dining room seats six: Haymitch and Effie, Sae and her granddaughter, Katniss and me. Thanks to Katniss, my sweet potatoes have made it to the table along with a squash casserole, to which I notice Haymitch help himself three times while he fills his glass only once.

Although Effie's reminiscing about happy Yules from her childhood falls on deaf ears with the offspring of hungry 12, it does begin a round of conversation about happy memories. I'm shocked that Haymitch has any, but he launches into a story about a teacher who liked him in fourth year and gave him a guitar to take home and practice on, and for weeks he would play while his mother would do the wash, and she would make up words so that she could sing along. Then Sae recalls a time that she and her sister snuck out in the middle of the night to see what went on at the slag heap, but they realized too late that they didn't know how to get there, so when they were caught sneaking back in, they fell into a fit of giggles that drowned out their scolding and put them to bed with stitches in their sides.

Apparently Katniss relates to Haymitch's story, because she remembers riding on her father's shoulders on a walk one autumn afternoon while they sang a round. She doesn't say what song they sang, but I can tell she remembers. Even Effie asks if Katniss would sing it for us, but she only smiles and shakes her head.

I only know Sae's granddaughter by the name of Critter, which I'm sure is not her real name but is all her Gram calls her. Critter leans over to whisper in Katniss's ear. She has some sweet potato clutched in one of the hands she holds up to block her secret from traveling to unintended listeners. Katniss listens carefully before answering, "Yes, I think your Gram likes to tuck you in, too." And Sae goes a little pink in the nose and dabs an eye with her thumb.

"And what about you, Peeta?" Effie asks, smiling a very red smile over her very red wine.

I take a deep breath and think back. Something that made me happy.

"When I was ten, my brother Filo liked to rough me up." Effie looks very shocked, so I continue quickly, "Not badly, just as brothers do. Our older brother, Broa, didn't think it was fair, Fil being older and bigger and all. So he decided to teach me to wrestle. We practiced when Fil was working, or doing chores, or out with friends; and Broa would try to just come at me like Fil would, so I could learn how to react.

"Well, it was terrible. He just clobbered me every time. He wasn't even trying. I was just that defenseless. It went on for weeks. I was limping around; my mother didn't know if I was getting beaten up at school or what." I notice Katniss look solemnly at her empty plate. I give her a little nudge with my foot under the table until she looks up again and I give her a reassuring smile. It's not that kind of story. "Broa should have given up, but I guess I was so pitiful he didn't have the heart. So he threw out everything we'd been working on and started me on offense. Real wrestling moves. Ankle picks and leg takedowns. It didn't make any sense, but for some reason it worked. He was three times my size, but I could get low and grab his legs right our from under him. The first time it happened, Broa called off the practice until he went and got our father. Then, with Pop watching, he started wrestling with me. And he was playing dirty, too. He had me by the ankle, grabbed ahold of the fence. But I slipped free. Again and again and again. He came at me, and I slipped free, and Pop was just watching the whole time like he was just waiting for us to break something. But then I got him. I don't know what happened – he got distracted, or he just tired himself out – but all of a sudden Broa was face down on the ground, and I had an arm under his shoulder and over his neck, and his other arm behind his back, and I knew right then that I had him. When he tapped out, Pop walked right up to us, still sweating and panting on the ground, and he looked at Broa and said, 'Well?'

"And Broa wiped his face on his shirt and said, 'He's got it, Pop.'

"And I guess I knew for once that they were proud of me. Because that's what I remember, just them looking at me kind of smiling, and feeling like I made them proud.

"Filo only tackled me one more time after that," I finish. Everyone at the table laughs, even Katniss, who follows up by asking if that's when I got into wrestling at school. I tell her yes, but since Broa didn't practice with me much after that, I don't add more to my story. My good memory is about my pop and my brother and a half nelson; that's all.

So, with that, I get up to serve dessert.

When we are all full of pie and peppermint and sparkling wine, Sae and Critter give Katniss and me hugs and pull on their coats and boots. Effie seems rather content to stay in her cozy seat near the fireplace, but Haymitch picks up her white suitcase and wishes me a happy Yule.

"C'mon, now, let's leave these kids alone," he says to Effie. It's a little odd, considering he's one of the few people who knows just how screwed up "these kids" are and how little we need to be left alone, but it gets Effie to her feet and shrugging on her furs quicker than I can say, "Oh, no; please stay for tea."

We sit and watch the fire for a long time, Katniss and I. We don't say anything, but the crackling of the fire is so mellow and cheerful, I smile to myself. I look over at Katniss when she sighs and see that she's smiling as well. One hand props her head on the arm of the couch. The other hand just lies next to her. I move mine until it barely brushes hers and I look back to the fire, hoping equally that she will notice, and that she won't.

"Did you have a good time?" I ask, trying to act casual.

"It was nice," she says with her eyes on the fire. She glances at me. "I really liked to hear about you and your brother. You don't talk about him much."

"I guess I don't." I swallow. "I miss him. Him and Filo."

"They must have loved you a lot," says Katniss gently.

"Yeah." I laugh and add, "Sometimes." Katniss looks at me a little funny, so I try to explain. "Sometimes I was just the scapegoat. And always on the bottom bunk. Conned into taking an extra shift in the bakery."

"That doesn't mean they didn't love you."

"Not like you love Prim."

She doesn't feign modesty on this point; she knows it's true, so she purses her lips and looks away. No matter the circumstances, my brothers would never have offered themselves in my place at the Reaping. I don't blame them. It's not a bad thing, wanting to live. But Katniss loved her sister too much in that moment to let her be taken away, and she loves her too much now to ever wholly enjoy a happy moment that Prim misses.

"Sometimes," Katniss whispers, "I think I cared too much for her. I wonder... I wonder if it wouldn't have been better had I not volunteered."

"Then she and I would have gone into the arena together."

Katniss has realized this, of course. She says nothing.

"Katniss," I say, "neither of us would have come home."

She is quiet for so long, I wonder if I should have held my tongue. Sure, she's feeling guilty now, but maybe sometimes she just needs that fantasy that, in some life, Prim would have come out of all this alive. I got a chance and Katniss got a chance, so where was Prim's chance? And my family – was there any line of events that could have left them safe?

There's no use asking questions we can't answer. I want to say that I'm glad she volunteered so I could be here now, but that is incredibly selfish in light of all the death and scars and tortures. I want to change the subject, but Katniss never talks about Prim and I don't want to cut her off now. I say nothing.

But she changes the subject on her own.

"Thank you," she says quietly, "for helping me with my leg."

"Thank you for helping me with mine."

Katniss gives me a sad sort of smile, and then my hand is no longer just barely touching hers – she is holding it tight.

Her little fingers almost tickle as they knead mine. With a fleeting, selfish feeling, I pass from elation at her touch to it simply not being enough. Now that I have her hand on mine, I want to kiss her. I know I shouldn't hope, but if I can chalk it up to curiosity, or the light of the fire, or the fact that I'm still a teenaged boy and I haven't had a girlfriend in a long, long time... well, those reasons are good enough for me.

Katniss turns to me. "You're staring at me." She raises an eyebrow.

"Sorry." I look at the fire, but soon my eyes are back on Katniss. She laughs.

"Do I have flour on my face?" she asks, but her hand doesn't reach up to check, so I know she's just teasing. I smile and shake my head.

"Well," she says, giving my hand a squeeze, "what is it?"

"Nothing. It's just nice to have you here." Nothing wrong with that.

Chuckling a little, she settles lightly against my arm. Just before leaning her head on my shoulder, she stops and looks up at me. "Is this okay?" she asks.

"Of course," I reply. But I'm starting to think it's not okay. Her head on my shoulder, her hand, the fire... everything makes it hard to think of Katniss as a friend.

Should I see if she'll let me kiss her?

I worry too much about these things. I'm tired of asking for permission. I'm tired of thinking forever over every impulse I have to be near her. I've kissed girls I wasn't in love with before – why can't I kiss this one?

"I'm going to kiss you now." I say suddenly. I'm not asking exactly, but at least she's warned. "If that's okay." Best to be respectful.

But Katniss pulls back, laughing in earnest now. "It kind of kills the moment when you tell me beforehand, you know."

"I know," I admit. "It's just that I'm tired of asking for your permission."

"Asking my permission? To kiss me?" She frowns.

"Anything," I say, nodding to our clasped hands.

"I don't understand. Why would you need to ask?"

I look at her steadily. "I didn't that first time," I say carefully, "and it didn't go so well."

She looks confused. Her brow furrows as she looks at me, her head tilted like I will make more sense if she hears me in her Capitol ear. "The first time – in the Games?"

"Well, the last time."

Not only does her frown deepen, but now she shakes her head. I don't know what she's saying _no_ to; I haven't said anything wrong. "Why would you ask me to kiss you?"

"I didn't." I amend, "I mean, I kissed you, but I didn't ask. And then you were so mad at me, and I knew you deserved -"

"Peeta, what are you talking about?"

"When I kissed you a few months ago." I thought that was pretty clear, but I still don't have a lot of context for other times that we've kissed. I mostly remember the kiss in my kitchen and the time during the siege in the Capitol.

But Katniss looks genuinely concerned now. Her hand leaves mine, moving lightly to my elbow as she scrutinizes my face. "Are you feeling okay? _ I _kissed _you_ in October. I even apologized for it, remember?"

"No," I remind her, "that was when Effie visited and we -"

"I know when it was, and I know what I was apologizing for. I hadn't realized how hard physical contact was for you until Effie was here and I made you let me hang all over you."

"But you didn't talk to me for almost a month!" It makes no sense. Why would she avoid me so thoroughly afterward if she was the one who made the move in the first place?

Her face changes from confused to amused. "_You _didn't talk to _me_! I thought you were mad..." She hesitates, unsure. "I thought you were mad that I assumed you'd want me to kiss you."

"But I kissed you, I'm positive." Granted, I don't remember deciding to do it. But I know I wanted to, and then I was kissing her. It's not hard to figure out.

"Tell you what," says Katniss with the hint of a smile, "I'll let you kiss me this time. Then we'll be even."

"No, then I will have kissed you twice," I argue. "We won't be even at all."

She laughs. "Peeta, I've kissed you so many times I can't count them." She tilts her face up toward mine and shuts her eyes. "Go ahead. I swear I won't be mad."

And I try to kiss her, but it's very uncomfortable to kiss when you're laughing, and we keep bumping teeth and getting thin-lipped pecks. But she's right; she doesn't get mad. She lets me kiss her, or try to kiss her, for several minutes before pulling away, looking a little flushed but not flustered.

"I think you've gotten worse," she says. "Out of practice?"

"Definitely," I nod. "Do you think you could let me practice a little more?"

Katniss shakes her head. "I thought I told you," she says with a teasing smirk, "_don't ask_."

So I don't.

"Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight,  
>Just a touch of the fire burning so bright -<br>I don't wanna mess this thing up.  
>I don't wanna push too far."<br>- "Just a Kiss," Lady Antebellum

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: **_Me again! Great to see you down here at the bottom of the chapter! Okay, so here's the deal. Everyone always gets excited over comments, pleads for comments, etc., etc. But I've noticed something: no one ever leaves negative comments. Even the 300-word, misspelled, non-punctuated crapfests get positive comments. (Sorry, crapfest writers! Practice is good! Keep it up!) So, I read all these positive comments - and they make me feel fabulous, dear readers, so thank you - but they don't really help me, you know what I mean? And then there are all the people not leaving comments, and I have to wonder if it's because they don't have anything positive to say, so they are keeping their mouths shut, so to speak.

So, I am begging you all: PLEASE LEAVE ME A NEGATIVE COMMENT. I mean, be honest. You don't have to be mean. If you want to say something nice, you can do that, too. But please. Everyone. Give me something I can work with! Ah-ah-ah, I see you going, "All I could say is that I was bored. Surely she doesn't mean that, does she?" Um, yes she does! If twelve of you out there are bored, clearly I'm not doing something right. Here you are on Chapter 10. You've got something. Now, let me have it!

Remember: Everyone. Negative. Thank you so much for your cooperation. :-D

Edit: Y'all still aren't doing it. Send me a private message if you have to. Or tell me honestly you have nothing negative to say. Why won't you speak to me? Was it something I said?  
>Oh, yeah, and thanks for reading!<p> 


	11. Good News

Welcome back, dear hearts!

I have another love letter for all of you sweet, little jabberjays at the end of the chapter.

In an effort to provide the juiciest, tastiest, fictioniest fiction I can possibly fic, I asked my dedicated reader-slash-Hunger-Games-idea-thinker-upper, **PPerfect,** to beta for me, and she graciously accepted! If anything in this chapter sucks, you can be sure I squeezed it in :after: she worked her magic.

Other credits due: The characters and associated material belong to Suzanne Collins. The lyrics are credited as appropriate.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 11: Good News**

"Sometimes beginnings aren't so simple.  
>Sometimes goodbye's the only way."<br>- "Shadow of the Day," Linkin Park

This might be hard to believe, but I never considered myself a morning person. I have always been an early riser, of course, but only because I've had to be. There were cakes to frost or rolls to set on display or, at the very least, floors to mop. These days, morning comes whenever the nightmares shake me from sleep. But more and more often, I am finding that I might be a morning person after all; by the time I'm out of my shower, there is a bounce in my step and a whistle on my lips. _She'll be here soon_, I think. _And then the day will really begin._

It's funny how easy my life seems now. I have my routines, I have long-term goals, and I don't have much to worry about. If I feel like kissing Katniss, I just do it. I don't worry about if she wants me to or not. And if she wants to kiss me, she does. It's that simple. No, we don't spend all day in each other's mouths. (That's what Katniss calls it, the one morning when I happen to kiss her three times before breakfast. "Don't get me wrong; I like it," she says. "But are we just going to be in each other's mouths from now on?" As I laugh, I'm afraid she's only made me want to kiss her again, but I give her a hug instead to prove I have restraint.) We might kiss hello in the morning, or I might take a kiss good night when we part in the evening. It's just a little here and there, really. But it feels pretty nice, being able to kiss a girl again. And a pretty great girl, at that.

She walks – very carefully – to my house in the mornings to help with my orders. Then, I make my deliveries alone. The snow melts, slowly but surely, until all that remains is cold mud. I'm grateful, because if I have to bring my cane on deliveries, I'm bound to have trouble carrying everything on my own. And while conditions are safer, that's still too much walking for Katniss's knee.

Our newly-elected representative to the government in Columbia, Tristan York, stops me on my rounds one morning to introduce himself. His short, pale hair and narrow features look familiar, but I can't place where I might have seen him before. Perhaps on the Victory Tour, for although he has the look and accent of a person from Old 12, he has obviously been in the Capitol all this time. I have no idea where he is staying, as there's no statesman housing up yet, or even an inn; but even though spotting his magenta suit in the middle of our bare, winter-gray town square is amusing, I suppose the point of being a representative is for him to spend most of his time in Columbia governing, not hobnobbing around his home district. Still, he asks my opinions on several topics in a slow drawl before giving me his well wishes for Katniss and marching for the train station.

While I'm doing my deliveries in town, I take inventory of the unclaimed properties around the square and pick one out for my bakery. Despite my parents' old address remaining open and technically belonging to me, I decide not to take it. I would rather carve out my own name here in The Pearl than resurrect my family's business from District 12.

There is a lot of building going on, though, and I'm sure someone else will take the spot. In fact, there is a real sense of community on the build sites. Everyone lends a hand, hammering, sawing, laying brick and mortar. Persi Ruth spots me and, when he waves, five other guys turn to wave. If these are the guys who are going to help me get my bakery up, I wouldn't mind helping their businesses, too. I should ask Persi about it sometime.

The temporary building set up for records-keeping is barely larger than my bathroom. An older woman I recognize from seeing around town is seated behind a fold-out table that is overcrowded with papers, and files of papers, and boxes of files of papers. She smiles genuinely when I ask her about the process of acquiring the land and the appropriate licenses to build, and her answers come quickly and clearly. I like her pretty well until she hands me the canary yellow carbon copy of my application with a knowing wink and asks, "So when do you think you'll file a record of that marriage, Mr. Mellark?"

"She said _what_?" guffaws Haymitch when I tell him about it that night. "So? Did you tell her there's no marriage to record?" He tears himself a chunk of flatbread from the plate on the table.

"No," I say, wary of the impish grin across Haymitch's face.

"Did you tell her it's none of her business?"

"No, but I considered it."

"Did you tell her that, seeing as how you're not currently living with this alleged wife of yours, now is probably a tactless time for her to recommend you create a permanent record of the date on which this union is supposed to have taken place?"

"Of course not."

He blinks at me for a moment, his smile fading. "You told her you'd get back to her, didn't you?"

I don't say anything.

"Hmph," Haymitch grumbles. "Don't see why you can't tell her the truth now. No one's coming after you." He gives the crown of my head a distant scowl, gnawing on his bread. "Unless you want it to be true, of course."

"Even if I did, that wouldn't matter; you know I can't say it was all a lie. These people have named their district after us. After something they believe we have."

"They think you have a pearl?" His voice is all innocence but his smirk says, _Sucker_.

"Love, Haymitch." The urge to roll my eyes is overwhelming.

"What, you don't have that? You're kissing that girl all the time."

"No, I'm not." Haymitch raises an eyebrow. "Not all the time. We're just friends."

"Yeah, there's a name for friends who kiss," he says sardonically.

"Well," I return, "what about you and Effie?"

Instead of taking the hint, he sneers. "Yeah, there's a name for people like me and Effie, too, but I don't think you want to hear me say it."

As I struggle to respond, Haymitch eyes me smugly. "You get a look on your face, you know. When you've just kissed her." He licks the crumbs from his fingers. "You look like an idiot."

"I do not," I protest, but honestly, how would I know how I look?

"Sure you do," says Haymitch. "Now, same as always. In the Games, even."

"Let's not talk about this," I say.

"Look," he says, raising his hands in a defensive gesture, "I don't care. It doesn't matter to me if you're kissing the girl and looking like an idiot, or if you're telling people you'll get back to them about your record of marriage rather than telling them you're not married. All I want to know is why you can't talk about it. Would it be so wrong for you to end up exactly where you started?"

I try to think of a polite way of putting it. All I come up with is, "Yes."

Haymitch barks an unfriendly laugh. "And why is that? The girlfriend's hangups? Her mother still think she's too young? What gives?"

"For starters, I strangled her."

"Ages ago. You were mentally disoriented. She knows what that's like - used to walk around with the words right there on her wrist. Anything else?"

I stare at him in disbelief. "That on its own should be enough."

But Haymitch shakes his head. "That wasn't really you. We all know that."

"Then why do I remember doing that, but I don't remember a minute with her in the cave in our first arena? Or giving her that locket in the second? I remember my hands around her throat but not holding her hand on the Victory Tour. You tell me how that wasn't me."

"You're a smart kid; can't you figure it out?" Haymitch waits for me to respond. I don't. "Who were you trying to hurt, really?" he asks with a sigh.

I don't understand what he's getting at. I wasn't aiming for someone else, or hurting her to send a message to anyone. It sounds like he's suggesting I strangled Katniss in some sick sort of self-harm, to punish myself for something. But none of that is true.

"I was trying to kill Katniss," I say. It sounds so nasty, so wrong aloud.

"Except you thought Katniss was..."

"a mutt."

"Right!" Haymitch slaps a palm against the table. "And is Katniss a mutt?"

I can't dignify that question with a reply, so I give Haymitch a look.

"Okay, kid. Just making a point. If you were throttling a mutt, but Katniss isn't a mutt, then how do you explain yourself? It's not logical, is it?"

I shake my head to disagree with Haymitch, but something about what he's saying makes sense. I certainly don't look at Katniss now and think she's a mutt; it really does feel like I was someone else at that time.

"So, you see," says Haymitch, "that little incident doesn't mean anything."

Of course, there have been other times, too, when I haven't attacked Katniss, but I've hallucinated about her. A lot of times I do video therapy, for instance. Not that I mention them now – they do happen, but I haven't had much trouble with them. In fact, the last time I thought I might have an episode with Katniss nearby, when we were fighting, I got away from her and avoided the episode entirely. So there's a chance that I have this particular scar of the hijacking under control now.

I smile a little to myself. Not being a danger to Katniss... that's good news. And I want so much to believe it.

* * *

><p>The new year is rung in with more fanfare than I can ever recall. Someone has brought some little explosives to the district, and crowds are out setting them off in town. I can hear them from my living room, just pop-pop-POPping away. I try to look at some catalogs of kitchen appliances, but every POP sets me increasingly on edge.<p>

I'm already feeling unwell when I hear knocks at my door: a heavy thumping and a lighter rap. I have a feeling I know who it is – not many people would show up at my door this late at night, especially in pairs. Nevertheless, even Haymitch and Katniss would be better off leaving me alone right now.

"Now's not a good time," I say when I open the door. "You should go back home."

"Nonsense. We're the only three people in the district who can't stand that noise. We're going to have a cozy night together." And, with that, Haymitch elbows his way in, leaving me at the door, looking out. Katniss looks at me, shrugs, and steps in past me. She gives me a little touch on my elbow as she goes, which is comforting except for the chill that races up my spine. No, now is not a good time. Cheers waft up from town over the loud percussion of the firecrackers. With a cringe, I shut the door.

Haymitch collapses into the chair adjacent to the couch and takes a swig from the flask he has just produced from his breast pocket. The smell of the liquor wafts over, making me a little queasy.

Katniss, who is chewing on the inside of her cheek, takes a seat on the couch. I sit at what should be a comfortable distance, one cushion away.

And no one says anything.

In the distance, firecrackers pop. The clock on the mantle gives a steady _tick_. Haymitch cracks his knuckles. My foot makes a shuff-shuff sound against the floor. Katniss just sits, still and silent.

The minute hand moves.

"Maybe," Katniss's voice breaks in, "we should watch some TV?"

"No," says Haymitch. "That'll be worse than the firecrackers."

I swallow, and the noise seems to echo throughout the room. As if reminded by the sound, Haymitch tips the flask to his lips again.

Shuff-shuff-shuff.

Tick. Tock.

Pop-POP.

"What about a radio?" asks Katniss. She sounds a little distressed. Or maybe that's just me. "Do you have a radio?"

"Yeah, sure," I say, locating the thing mentally. "It's just on a shelf in my study."

"I'll get it," she says loudly, jumping to her feet. Clearly, she's anxious for the distraction, but I find my feet almost as swiftly.

"No, I will." I do my video therapy in the study. If she were to look around at all, she could easily see all those files lying out. "Help yourself to anything in the kitchen."

The hall is dark and I fumble for the switch as I step into the study. The radio is stashed up on a high shelf behind the desk. My hands seem a little shaky to me, so I try to work quickly and focus on my task. After pulling the desk chair over to the shelves, I climb onto it and reach up, wrapping my fingertips behind the bulky radio and pulling forward.

Pop-pop-POP. Just as I get the thing in my hands, I black out for a second. Instinctively, I duck my head, and the whole world tilts.

_Stay calm,_ I tell myself. _Take a deep breath. Now, slowly get down from the chair._

Hugging the radio to my chest, I fold myself in half until I can rock back on my heels and feel the chair support me from behind. My vision is starting to clear; I pull myself into a regular sitting position.

This can't end well. My heart pounds so hard I can hear it, throbbing in my temples. I have to stay calm.

I take one deep breath to slow my breathing, take another breath and let it loosen up my muscles. All right. I've done this a thousand times. I will calm down and everything will be fine. _Now, picture it_: there's a beautiful kitchen. Gray marble countertops. Clean, except for a flour-spattered towel stuffed into the cooling rack. There are three perfect, round cakes ready for me.

POP-pop-POP.

When I hear the popping of the guns, I feel confused. How did the Capitol get a copy of my study in the prison? And how on earth would that help with their mind games? That doesn't make any sense.

Disoriented, I blink. Am I falling asleep or something? Because for a minute there, I thought I was back in prison. But clearly I am at home; I just don't remember how I ended up here in the study. Did I come in here for therapy? If so, I must have the phone lying around here somewhere. Dr. Aurelius must think I'm losing it.

While I'm looking around for the phone, I clutch my churning stomach. The room sways and pitches with every echoing step I take. I lean against my desk and try to catch my breath.

_Stay calm. _ In my kitchen, there are three cakes, perfect and yellow. I can imagine the smell of the vanilla and the mellow shade of green for the frosting. There is a silver parachute there, right next to the mixing bowl. How strange – could it be from Haymitch? When I reach out to it, POP fire, yellow hair, a burst of flame, a blast of heat, and then just me in my study with a racing pulse.

"Peeta." I know that voice. It's someone I trust. Why do I feel so panicky, though? I'm supposed to do something in here. "Peeta?" I remember, now. Katniss.

Pop-POP-POP. It's that thing, that machine animal thing. No, that was a trick. Katniss was never a mutt; the Capitol planted that. Not real.

"Peeta?" She stands in the door. I see the the tell-tale sparkle, the wink of metal along her jaw, and I know that this isn't Katniss. No, there was no mutt before, but there is now – a gift from the Capitol to remind me they know all my secrets. They can take my memories and twist them into nightmares. They can create new mutts and new horrors whenever they want. They can take my best friend and twist her into a machine that will hurt us. Oh, yes, I remember now. I came in here to bake a cake, and that thing, that mutt, sent in silver parachutes. They're bombs, sent to kill us all. Fire everywhere. She – it – moves toward me.

"Don't!" I shout. "Don't come near me." It works for a moment. The thing takes a step back. Then it turns its head and starts yelling - something - I don't know what. If it weren't a mutt, I would hate the look of terror on its face. But I know these tricks. "Stop!" I scream with my hands over my ears. I can't give it a single second to get into my head. I try to shut my eyes to shut everything out, but the thing's fingers wrap around my wrist. I shove it back, hard, until I hear the satisfying crack of its head against the wall. Stepping forward, I throw my weight against its leg to keep it from getting away. My forearm presses against its throat. Gray eyes. Why do the mutts always have to have gray eyes?

But I hear a little sound, like the mew of a kitten, or the whimper of a child. A girl with a dark braid, bleeding from her head in the darkness of a cave; inconsolable on a beach, tortured by the sound of her sister's voice. In slow motion, I watch that girl appear before me, my arm peel away, Katniss catching her breath as I watch from across the room.

_Oh, my God._ Oh, souls, I'm going to be sick. The acid stings the back of my throat. I sink to the floor, tuck my head between my knees. _What have I done? _Haymitch comes in, starts shouting something, but my head buzzes over it all. Katniss can talk, thank the land, for she is saying something to Haymitch.

"That right, boy?" he asks, a little slurred, giving me an ungentle nudge with his foot. I look up to say, "What?" but it comes out, "Huh?" Haymitch looks unlike himself. His face is strangely pale, his ears bright red. His jaw is tight. I squint at him as though he, too, is a hallucination.

"See," says Katniss. "He's not himself."

"Did you hurt her?" asks Haymitch again. _Did I?_ My stomach twists with horror, and I give Katniss a desperate look-over. I see no blood, no sign that I've hit her. I can't remember what I did, to tell the truth. Everything is sand between my fingers. What did Haymitch just ask me? "Huh?"

I realize with a start that Katniss has the saddest expression on her face. Sadder, even, than how she looks when she talks about Prim.

"You should go. Now," I stutter urgently.

Katniss looks at Haymitch, who gives her a nod. She begins to say something quietly, her eyes darting back to me as she speaks to him, but I can't hear much anyway; the buzzing in my head is subsiding to a ringing in my ears. I can make out Haymitch's repeated assurance: "I'll take care of it. You go on home." And when Katniss finally backs out the door, a wobble in her step and that morose look on her face, I expect Haymitch to follow.

But instead, he grabs me by the elbow and yanks me to my feet. I'm unsteady, like I've taken a few strong pulls off his flask. Up the stairs, then a pause until I tell Haymitch which room is mine, and then he throws me to my bed and leaves me, confused, as he starts running water in my bathroom. A moment later, he's at my side again.

"Come on," he says. "Time for a shower."

He follows me, to my horror, but he doesn't move to help me undress or bathe. Instead, he grabs my razor from above my sink and asks, "Anything else sharp in here?"

"No," I answer with a shake of my head.

"Five minutes," he says. "Don't lock the door." And he is gone.

The water is hot, so hot it's past comfort, but invigorating nonetheless. Some of my weariness melts away, and the aching shakiness I get after episodes settles. When Haymitch opens the door to order me out, I still feel a little confused, but mostly I'm beginning to understand why he took my razor. Greater than my guilt, shame, confusion... Despair. I tried to move on from this hijacking. Tried to deal with the flashbacks, the panic attacks, the hallucinations. Tried to tell myself that a day would come when I wouldn't think Katniss is a monster. That I would never again hurt her. I believed Haymitch when he said that wasn't me. But that is me, will always be me, and I cannot keep it from rising up and striking. Katniss would be safer if I weren't around.

"Get into bed. Don't get up till you've slept, you hear me?" Haymitch pulls back the covers so forcefully, I wonder if he's going to tie my wrists before he lets me lie down. Warily, I edge onto the bed, get my leg settled, and finally recline.

"Do you have something you can read or work on?" asks Haymitch. "You're probably in for a long night."

"Catalogs," I answer. "On the coffee table."

He leaves the room, and I can hear his heavy clumping down the stairs. A few minutes later, the clumping rises again. Haymitch reenters, places two catalogs, a pad of paper, a pencil, and a glass of water on my bedside table.

"Now, stay in bed. Don't get any stupid ideas. The pencil's dull. I'll be downstairs." And, with that, Haymitch turns to go.

"Wait," I say hurriedly. It comes out a bit louder than I was trying for. "_Did_ I hurt her?"

Haymitch pauses in the doorway, purses his lips, and looks at me. He stays silent, but it's enough of an answer. My stomach twists violently and I swallow back the nausea.

"Her throat?"

"Her throat's fine this time," says Haymitch. "She's just set back a little on her sprained knee."

I shut my eyes. I leaned on her knee – I remember that. "I did that to her." And now I'm just going to bed like nothing happened. I should get up and apologize. I should make sure she's okay, and take care of her like I did when she fell – when I knocked her down. But that was just an accident. Wasn't it? We were having a little bit of a fight. Could I have had an episode without knowing?

My mind is spinning so fast I feel woozy. If I can have episodes without realizing it, then no one is safe around me. But especially not Katniss. I'm an unpredictable, unfixable, violent wreck.

Haymitch, who has been watching me from the door, gets tired of waiting for me to say more, and he turns again to go.

"I think it would be best," I say, getting him to face me once more, "if I don't see Katniss anymore."

And although I know it's true, I still feel raw and empty when I see Haymitch's slow nod of assent.

"I'll keep you alive  
>If you show me the way<br>Forever and ever the scars will remain."  
>- "Give Me a Sign," Breaking Benjamin<p>

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><p><strong><em>AN:_** I know that's a tough place to leave off, my darlings, so I will try to be quick with the next chapter!

Huge thanks to all of you who left "negative comments" last time. In response, I acquired a beta and am trying hard to post more quickly (though, with a beta, I am doing some editing I may or may not have done otherwise, so it's hard to say if this is going more quickly or not!). I am also keeping in mind things like pacing (on which many of you were in direct conflict about!) and giving you reasons to keep reading. Overall, I'd say the feedback I got goes well with what I already have planned. For example, someone thought it was time for an episode, and I had already been working on one! It came out quite differently than I had originally framed out, though.

In the future, please feel formally invited to leave constructive criticism in your reviews. Even those of you who said you had nothing negative to say helped me get a feel for how your reading experience is going!

And I'm sorry about tricking you with the title for this chapter. The only other thing I could think of was "Chapter 11: Bankruptcy."

If you need some good reading, I just enjoyed _Ruby Red_ by Kerstin Gier and am laughing my way through _Ditched: A Love Story_ by Robin Mellom. See you soon!


	12. The New Year

Hello, my little tributes!

I know it took forever to get this chapter up, but in consolation, it is a bit longer than usual. Big thanks to **PPerfect**, who not only helped with editing and such, but she also discussed with me at length who should say what, especially in the final scene.

Some of you expressed concern, during the lengthy wait, that I was not going to finish this story. Rest assured that I am actively working on this story, there are future chapters just sitting around waiting for us to get to them, and you will know when we've reached the end. All the pauses are when I've caught up to scenes I haven't written yet, and I have to figure out how they go. I have always been a slow, careful writer, and while I apologize for how long you end up waiting, I hope that the final product shows its full body polish.

Of course, you know that all the characters and associated material belong to our friend Suzanne Collins. The lyrics are credited to their respective artists.

Thank you for reading, and remember you are invited to leave constructive criticism!

* * *

><p><em>Last time, on <em>_**Smoke Rising**__..._

_"Wait," I say hurriedly. It comes out a bit louder than I was trying for. "Did I hurt her?"_

_Haymitch pauses in the doorway, purses his lips, and looks at me. He stays silent, but it's enough of an answer. My stomach twists violently and I swallow back the nausea._

_"Her throat?"_

_"Her throat's fine this time," says Haymitch. "She's just set back a little on her sprained knee."_

_I shut my eyes. I leaned on her knee – I remember that. "I did that to her." And now I'm just going to bed like nothing happened. I should get up and apologize. I should make sure she's okay, and take care of her like I did when she fell – when I knocked her down. But that was just an accident. Wasn't it? We were having a little bit of a fight. Could I have had an episode without knowing?_

_My mind is spinning so fast I feel woozy. If I can have episodes without realizing it, then no one is safe around me. But especially not Katniss. I'm an unpredictable, unfixable, violent wreck._

_Haymitch, who has been watching me from the door, gets tired of waiting for me to say more, and he turns again to go._

_"I think it would be best," I say, getting him to face me once more, "if I don't see Katniss anymore."_

_And although I know it's true, I still feel raw and empty when I see Haymitch's slow nod of assent._

* * *

><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em>**** Chapter 12: The New Year**

"Here I lie with my regrets,  
>Possessions petty, meaningless...<br>Don't go, don't go..."  
>- "Fade Into (The Ocean)," 10 Years<p>

I blink at the ceiling through the pale yellow-gray of very early morning. Over the hours, my gut has twisted up on itself, growing sour and heavy. An ache that vibrates my nerves and sets my teeth on edge has settled into my neck, arms, and legs. It actually hurts to blink.

This has been one of the longest nights of my life.

I was awake when the fireworks stopped and awake when Katniss's nightmares came, shrieks of terror no windowpane could stifle. I was awake when one stupid bird started singing, hours before the sun was due to rise, and I was still awake later, when the bird changed its song and I realized it was a mockingjay.

Although I don't hear him climb the stairs, I am awake when Haymitch opens my door and a shaft of light from the hall falls across the foot of my bed.

"Congratulations," Haymitch says wryly, stepping into my room. "You made it through the night."

I can muster nothing in reply but a humorless sort of chuckle, a weary, grunting sigh.

"I'll start your shower for you, princess. Do you want to pretend to eat breakfast first, or call the doctor?"

Allowing for my total lack of energy and powerful motivation to stay in bed until spring, it's almost two hours before I'm on the phone with Dr. Aurelius, with the whole story out of me, and waiting for his guidance.

"I can understand you feeling like this is a setback, Peeta, but honestly I'm encouraged. It sounds to me like you've made a lot of progress."

Dr. Aurelius's definition of progress strikes me as unreliable.

"I can't say for sure from what I'm hearing," he continues, "but what you described sounds like your delusions and hallucinations lasted maybe a minute, or even less. I know that doesn't sound good to you, but recall that you used to spend 24 hours a day in that state. And now, even when you experience an episode, you are able to pull yourself back into reality pretty quickly."

"I guess," I say. "But... I kind of thought I was done with this. And now I'm seeing that I'll always have this... _potential_ to do something awful."

"Well, yes. But we all have the potential to do something awful. The fact of the matter is: you had completely lost touch with reality and you still managed to pull yourself out of that situation."

I chewed that over for a minute. "Do you think this is how episodes will be for me from now on?"

"What do you mean exactly?" he asks.

"I guess I'm asking if I could still have episodes that take me longer to recover from, or if I could get to a point where I won't strike out at Katniss."

I hear the doctor breathe heavily into the phone, maybe a sigh. "I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that. It's entirely possible that this is the last episode you ever have. It's also possible, Peeta, that you could have some 'aftershocks' for a while; and furthermore another trigger could cause another episode that lasts longer and hits harder than any you've had in a long time. We just have no way of knowing. But I believe in you and the therapy you've been doing, and despite all the uncertainty, I feel strongly that you are making great progress here."

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to thank him, like he's paid me a compliment. Instead I say, "Okay."

"I know it's been a while since we've done the video therapy, but I'm thinking we should probably hold off on that for a few more weeks so we don't get any compound episodes. Does that seem all right to you?"

"I guess." He's going to get off the phone with me, and I panic. I'll have to find something to do all day. What if I see Katniss?

I haven't told Dr. Aurelius about my decision to stay away from Katniss; but he's the professional here, so I ask, "Do you think Katniss is safe around me?"

The _hmm_ he makes then is in no way encouraging.

"I think we can agree, you and I, that her safety is a priority we both share." As he pauses, I imagine him tapping his pen against his desk like he used to in my sessions at the hospital. "And as much I believe in your improvement, Peeta... I can't say that I actually recommend you spending time with Katniss alone."

Knockout. My breath leaves me.

When, an eternity later, air fills my lungs again, I stutter, "Thank you. That's..." _official._ "I..." _can't imagine my life without her._ "... That's what I figured. Thank you for taking my call."

"I'll call tomorrow for our usual appointment. Get some rest, Peeta. And call me if you start feeling bad."

_Start feeling bad?_ I wonder once I've hung up. _What am I doing now?_

I make myself act like it's a normal day, job-wise, even though my schedule is shot. Baking takes twice as long as usual, because I have to re-do, re-read, re-measure, and then start over again. Then I have to run my orders out all over the district, fighting fatigue and aches the whole way. Fortunately, my concentration is so poor that even though my mind is idle enough to dwell on my regrets, shame and self-loathing, I'm not focused enough for all of that to sink in. I can feel the depression, but at least the thoughts are fleeting and foggy.

By the time I'm back home, it's starting to get dark. I more or less skip dinner, not having the appetite for anything more than a bite of leftover potato, and I make my way up to bed before dusk has fully set. I'm so exhausted, I fall asleep easily enough, but the dark hours that follow are less than restful. Once the nightmares hit, they come one after another, and because my body needs the sleep so badly, the dreams don't wake me as fully as they usually do. I keep falling asleep, finding blood on my hands, waking in a cold sweat, and nodding off again.

The second day of the new year starts much like the first, apart from the charming presence of my old mentor. Perhaps due to my rough night, I actually wake later than usual, but after showering, dressing, and spending a little time despising myself, I talk to Dr. Aurelius for a while. I try to get some information out of him about Katniss – is she hurt? Is she afraid of me? Has she given me up for a deranged beast? - but he insists on keeping confidentiality with his other client, and instead he asks if _I_ think I am a deranged beast.

Maybe not both, I tell him, but certainly deranged_ or_ a beast.

And then he starts that spiel he began yesterday about how I used to live in a bubble of the Capitol's creation, and now I have burst that illusion to emerge into this reality which can be, at times, difficult to deal with.

It's not difficult at times. It's difficult all the time. My life is nothing like it was before, and it never will be, and I will always have these scars. Nightmares. Episodes. Anxiety attacks and flashbacks and days when I just don't have the energy to get out of bed.

Yet on and on the doctor goes, talking about improvement and achievements and potential.

"Building your bakery, for example," Dr. Aurelius says, "is a true mark of progress. You're beginning to really make a life for yourself. It's a great way to use your skill to the benefit of your neighbors in The Pearl. Have you been painting?"

"Sometimes," I answer. "I can't look at them, though."

"I can understand why it might be hard to look at the scenes you paint. You might try looking at a few sometime, though. Maybe one from when you first returned home, and one from a few months later? Just to compare? I could be on the phone with you, if you want, just in case you need some support."

It doesn't sound like a great idea to me. "Maybe," I say, and he doesn't press the issue.

After my appointment, I get to work. A rap comes at the door while I am elbow-deep in flour; I ignore it. A few minutes later, she knocks again.

"What is it, Katniss?" I say through the crack of the door, floury dishtowel in hand.

Katniss looks at the towel and smiles a little. "I just thought you might want some help with your orders."

That's just what I need. Katniss alone with me in a room full of blades and blunt objects.

"I don't need your help," I say shortly and shut the door. My poor manners would give Effie a fit, and honestly they don't make me feel so great either, but what could I say? The girl must have a death wish, showing up here after what I did. She knocks again, but after I lock the door, she goes away.

Baking takes forever, of course. I produce the first flat loaf of my life, which tastes pretty decent, if a bit dense, so I keep it for myself. My second attempt rises, but I've put twice the honey in it that I should have. Not so bad, really, but not what was ordered. Thankfully, my third try is successful. Otherwise I would have thrown all the orders out in frustration and stormed up to bed.

There's a cold drizzle falling as I make my rounds, calling for a one-armed balancing act with the packages to allow for my umbrella. It's humbling to deliver orders so late in the day, and with so much trouble keeping them dry, but everyone acts grateful and polite just the same.

On my loop through the town square, I take a look at my lot.

It's a bare rectangle of mud, sloping off a little in the back toward an even muddier little gully. I'll need to get the land evened out just to build, and even then, there's nothing I can do about the gully without buying up that land, too. I'm not so sure this is a good spot for a bakery after all. I don't really know about these things. I wish my father were here to tell me what to do.

Persi and the other builders are nowhere in sight, undoubtedly due to the weather, and suddenly I feel like a damn fool, walking out in the freezing rain, looking at some land I stupidly bought because I wanted to be different from who I was expected to be. It's ironic how different the public perception of me is from the real me.

Back home, I take a slice of my failed bread and go straight to my room, but sleep eludes me again. After a few hours of tossing and turning, I just give up and get out of bed. Since it's been taking me twice as long to prep my orders these days, I decide to just get started on those. Sure enough, I end up with two do-overs, but once I'm done, I'm not only hungry enough to eat a real meal, but I'm tired enough that I finally fall asleep on the couch downstairs.

It's a shock to wake after noon.

Thank the land I have my orders all ready, or I would never get them out by the end of the day. I decide to skip my shower, knowing I might regret it later but wanting to get my work over with, and just to remind me that hygiene is always a good idea, I run into Katniss ten steps out my door. Keeping my pace, I walk straight past her without a word; falling in step behind me, she tries to start a conversation.

"Good afternoon."

I say nothing.

"I see you got your orders done."

Nothing.

"I didn't mean to suggest you needed my help yesterday. Of course you don't need my help. You know what you're doing."

Since she seems to be dancing around an apology, I almost stop her. It's not that I was offended by her offer to help – it's just that it was a really bad idea. But still I say nothing, because if a cat meows for attention, telling it to stop meowing will only encourage it.

"Will you talk to me?" asks Katniss. And then, with exasperation, "What is your problem?"

And oh, how I wish I could answer that one! But any minute now, she'll leave me alone, and then she'll be safe for another day.

I climb some steps to drop off one of my parcels.

"Fine!" she shouts from street level. "But we're going to talk!"

That may be true, but I don't do much talking to anyone for the rest of the day, not even Persi and the crew when I see them back on-site in today's clearer weather. I just don't have the energy.

Still, it seems Katniss is serious about talking. On the fourth day since the incident, while I am lying in bed, debating whether to get up at all, there starts this awful racket at the door.

"You're avoiding me," she says when I open the door just a crack.

"I'm avoiding everybody," I say.

"I wish you wouldn't," says Katniss. "It's not good for you."

I shrug. "Not everything is about me."

"Okay... but we miss you."

I sigh. I wish she wouldn't try to guilt me this way. Steadily, I tell her, "I'm sorry." As I begin to pull the door shut, Katniss sticks her foot into the doorway.

"I'm going to close this door," I say.

She doesn't move.

"I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to slam your foot in the door."

Katniss leans forward so her face, as well as her foot, block my door. "Don't do it then," she says. "Just let me in."

The problem is I want to. I want to just let her in, and believe that everything is going to be okay, and pick up where we left off. But her eyes flash at me, the color of burned-down ashes, and a voice comes back to me: _Why do the mutts always have to have gray eyes?_ I push the door against her foot. Not hard. Enough to let her know I'm not opening up.

"Please, Peeta," she whispers. "Let's just talk."

"I don't want to talk about it," I tell her. "I don't want to let you in."

Her eyes narrow. Her ears go red. Her hands turn to fists at her side. But she takes a step back, and my door fills the space between us.

I have to admit that it feels awful, treating Katniss like that. My impulse is usually to make her happy; but my priority has always, always been her well-being, and in this case it seems keeping her safe might make her unhappy. Either way, I'm going to feel bad about it - whether I put her in danger or make her feel rejected - so to deal with the guilt, I decide to help someone out for a change.

"Mr. Peeta!" says Persi cheerfully when I show up in the square. "What brings you here?"

"I've been watching your crew at work here," I say, "and I'd like to get in on some of the action."

It feels good to talk to someone about normal things for a change. Persi calls down some of the guys from where they're fixing up the roof to keep out any more precipitation we'll be getting. The first one to shake my hand is tall, pale, with curly red hair.

"This here's Barber," says Persi. "There's Mack, Randall, James, and Prince." The way he says them, I can't tell if these are first names or last names. Everyone either comes to give me a handshake or waves heartily from where he's working, though, and I like them immediately.

"What kind of work you think you wanna do, Mr. Peeta?" says Barber.

"I guess hadn't given it much thought," I confess. "I used to be pretty strong, but I'm... a little out of condition."

"Well, strength is good," nods Persi, "but what we need most around here is steady hands."

"I'm usually pretty steady-handed," I say hesitantly, thinking of how sleep-deprived I am this week. For all I know, I could be shaking like a leaf.

"Perfect. We'll get Mack to show you how to use the nail gun." I guess Persi calls the shots around here.

Of all the guys, Mack is the only one who looks like he might have lived in 12 before the war. I can't place where I might have known him, but he looks like he could have been a Townie.

"Do I know you, Mack?" I ask once he's shown me the nail gun and handed it to me for practice.

Mack chuckles. "No, Mr. Peeta, I can't say we've ever met. Persi and I go way back, though."

"Oh. So you came here from 11, then?"

"No, I came here from Pectore." Mack winks. "After the name change. My parents were 12, though, before I was born."

I've never heard of anyone moving from 12 to 11 before. It's an intriguing thought.

"I've visited your district before," I say, trying to be diplomatic.

"Yes, sir; that I do recall." A couple of others grunt, "Uh-huh." I guess they all witnessed the mayhem Katniss and I caused, then. The man who was executed right after we, the shining victors, thanked the crowd and started doling out our winnings illegally. Starting a revolution.

"Are you all from Pectore, then?" I ask, hoping the burning in my cheeks doesn't show.

"Naw," says Mack, pointing up to a brawny fellow on the roof, "James is from 8."

I wait for the awkward moment, but no one acknowledges the connection between me and the events that brought them all here to this crater that used to be District 12. Prince hauls some shingles up to the eaves of the building, where James sets them out above the row he's finishing up.

"Mr. Peeta, think you could bring that nail gun up here? We'll see if you can use that thing, eh?" calls James.

"Sure," I say, wincing. "If you can do me a favor. All of you, actually."

"Yes, sir," James says. Prince peers down from the roofline.

"Would you guys mind not calling me Sir? And just 'Peeta' is fine. No need for the 'Mr.' I get it from the kids, but I'm pretty sure all of you are older than me. It's not a big deal; it just feels sort of weird – I'm not even twenty yet and everyone treats me like I'm sixty."

Mack's eyebrows disappear under the blond tufts of hair sticking out from under his hat and Randall looks up from his row of shingles to give me a shrewd look. Prince and James simply look at me.

"I'm sorry," I backtrack. "Was that rude?" I didn't consider that maybe it's customary in other districts to call everyone _Mr_. Just because I haven't ever heard of it before doesn't mean I'm a special case.

But they all cut off that line of thought.

"No, no!" says Mack, waving his hand in a sort of _stop_ gesture. "It's just that..."

"We all respect you," Barber chimes in. "And you act so much older..."

"More mature than nineteen," splutters Prince, wide-eyed.

James stands slowly, checking his balance before folding his arms and shaking his head. His eyes twinkle as he says, "What these chickens are trying to say is that we've seen you do things we could never do, Peeta, and I guess it's easy for us to forget how young you are, considering. We mean to be addressing you with respect."

"You're a victor," says Mack quietly. "Home from the Games twice and a war hero to boot.

"Listen," I insist, "I only survived because of Katniss, and the generosity of sponsors and District 11." At this I nod respectfully to those from 11. "And in the second games I was a failure at surviving. If it weren't for Finnick, Mags, Beetee, Johanna... well, I just had too many opportunities to die. Really, I did die. So I can't take credit for these things, and I don't need to be called Sir."

Collectively, the crew agrees, but even after my protests, I hear some mumblings about humility that I'm tempted to correct.

To their credit, I do look older. Later, when I step into the shower to wash off the grime from working in town, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and do a double-take. Dark circles under my eyes. My skin dull and loose. Even some fine lines. Maybe this is all due to my rough week – in fact, I hope it is, because I look awful – but if I didn't know better, I would peg myself for thirty. Running a hand over my scraggly head, I notice how ragged my hair is. I guess my trim over the sink a few months ago has seen its limited improvement expire.

That, at least, is something I can fix.

"Good evening," I say when Vera answers the door. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

"Not at all, Mr. Peeta; we just finished supper." She stands back and waves me in. "Would you like some creamed rice on toast? It's your bread."

"No, thanks. I actually came to see if you could do me a favor."

"What's that, hon?" Smiling, Vera shuts the door and starts to cross the living room toward the kitchen. As I talk, she pulls out a plate and, ignoring my earlier declination, begins spooning rice over toast.

"I was just wondering if you'd cut my hair. I've been doing it myself and, well, I'm sure you can see I have some trouble making it look... good."

"Here, eat this," she murmurs, passing me the plate absently while inspecting my head. After a minute, she tuts, then declares, "I haven't ever cut hair quite like yours, but I think I can improve what you've got." With a wink, she begins rummaging around for scissors and a towel, and before I know it, she's carving my hopeless mess into something more befitting a nineteen-year-old boy.

While she cuts, I find myself talking to her like I would an old friend. All my little secrets come spilling out: I don't sleep; I have no appetite; I just don't feel like doing anything anymore.

"Well, that's not right," she disagrees softly behind me. "Persi said you marched right up and asked to help on the site today."

"I know, but that was selfish. I just want to be useful so I don't feel so guilty," I confess.

"Now, what is there to feel guilty about? You're keepin' all your neighbors in bread and you won't take a dime for it. Even when you're feelin' bad and the weather's awful."

"It's just..." I stop short of telling her the exact reason for my guilt.

But, because she honestly doesn't know or maybe because she's that good at figuring me out, Vera says, "What does Miss Katniss have to say about all this guilt of yours?"

"Things with Katniss are... complicated," I say. The sound of the scissors by my neck ceases, and Vera comes around me until she crouches down in front of me.

"Complicated," she repeats quietly. "You and Miss Katniss." She doesn't ask any questions, not out loud, but I can see them all over her face, clear and honest and concerned.

I swallow.

"Something happened during the rebellion."

There. I said it.

No turning back now.

I take a breath, looking down at my hands, which rest on my knees. Vera covers them with her own and nods up at me.

"I was a prisoner of war. ...You probably knew that; they had me on TV. Anyway, they knew that, one way or another, I was eventually going to come face-to-face with Katniss again." My mouth tastes stale. "And to use that to their advantage..." I choose my words wisely. "They damaged my memories of her."

The whole room slips away for a moment, and I see myself from the outside. I have just told someone about the chasm between Katniss and me. The room tilts hard to the right, then straightens out, and the numb feeling in my body subsides.

"Wait, you mean..." Vera's hands tighten over mine. "You mean you lost your memories of Miss Katniss?"

When I nod, her eyes go wide, a very startling effect beside her dark skin. "But... you got them back, right?"

I fight the impulse to lie and instead shake my head.

Vera squeals, throwing a hand over her mouth. "You two are the greatest love story of our time!" she gasps through her fingertips. "And you can't remember it?"

"I don't know about the 'greatest love story' stuff," I say, "but I can tell you I'd give anything for it not to have happened." To think of all the hell we could have avoided if it weren't for the hijacking!

"Oh!" She shakes her head and stands up suddenly. "Oh! That is just so sad!" She starts pacing, which makes me feel awful.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know this would upset you so much. Katniss and I, we're fine. Don't worry."

But Vera spins on me. "What does all this have to do with your guilt, then?"

There is no way that I am going to start telling Vera about the mutts and the hallucinations and my violent tendencies and how my only solution is to stay away from Katniss, no matter how much that makes me feel like driving shards of glass down my arms.

Of course, Vera has no qualms about making guesses of her own. "Land sakes! You haven't given up on her, have you?"

What can I possibly say?

The noise that comes out of Vera is like the seal being broken on a new jar of jam. "You aren't thinking of leaving her, are you? 'Cause listen... I mean, first of all, y'all are meant to be together. And even if you don't remember that, there are thousands of people who watched you together, and we'll tell you! And second, well, don't take this the wrong way Mr. Peeta – you know I think you and Miss Katniss are both beautiful people, and you've just captured the hearts of the people of Panem, but – hon, you've got a lot of baggage! And I don't know a girl alive who'd want to take on something like that. Not to mention: they'd know they'd be replacing Miss Katniss, and that's pretty intimidating. You know, not just the fact that everyone believes you're supposed to be with her. But the fact that that's the last girl you've been with – well, that's a lot of pressure. I don't doubt that there are girls out there who want to know what your bed looks like, hon. I just don't know that there are any who would want to stick around."

I try to look like I'm thinking this over while Vera catches her breath. I've never seen her so impassioned about something before, and it's a shame that I disagree with her so completely.

"The thing is," I say after a moment, licking my lips as I venture gently into my response, "all my baggage... that doesn't matter. There's no one to replace Katniss. Do you know what I mean?"

Vera rests a hand on my shoulder, looking down at me with pity. No words needed.

"It's okay," I tell her, giving her hand a reassuring pat. "We'll be fine. She'll be better off."

But her eyes just get glossy and her voice quiet but determined when she says, "But sugar... no one should ever have to be alone."

Five days since I threw Katniss to the wall.

I shower. I eat something. I get to work in the kitchen. I do my rounds. I learn a few things about roofing with Persi and the guys. I take a shower. As hard as it is to get through the day, I do it, and it all seems so easy, in retrospect.

When I come downstairs from bathing, my front door is open, and the room is cold enough that I can tell Katniss has been standing in that doorway for a while.

"Can I come in?" she calls as I hop down the last few steps.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"Coming in, I hope," says Katniss. "But I wanted your permission first."

"I'm not going to give you permission," I answer brusquely. "Shut the door."

She does what I ask; she shuts the door. Defiantly. With her inside.

"I know you don't want to talk, but I'm inclined to pretty much ignore whatever you want." She shrugs a little, as if in apology, but her tone is bold and unapologetic.

"That I've noticed."

"It's not worth punishing yourself, Peeta. I'm okay. You came out of the episode all on your own, and you hardly had your hands on me a second."

She catches me rolling my eyes and tries another tactic.

"Could you tell it was going to happen?" she asks.

"In a way, yes. But if I had really known, I wouldn't have let you in the house." And that's the biggest truth of my life these days.

"Maybe you can just let me know," she says, "so I can leave you alone till you're better."

"I don't want to have to have that conversation with you. I don't want to be that close to a break and still have to be reliable enough to warn you." As it is, I'm keeping my distance from her now. I'm halfway into the kitchen, and she's within arm's reach of the front door.

"Well, we can work together on it." Katniss tugs thoughtfully at the end of her braid. "I could tell you weren't feeling right. I could just take the hint to stay away."

_Yes. Please. _"I wish you would. This is dangerous, Katniss. I could kill you."

Shaking her head, she frowns at me. "If you're suggesting I _always_ stay away, you've got another thing coming. We're going to have another forty, fifty, sixty years together – don't you think that this is worth trying to figure out?"

"I could live the next fifty years alone," I shake my head, "as long as I know you're safe."

"That's funny," says Katniss in a cold tone. "Because I'd rather live five days in the arena with you than fifty years alone."

"You don't understand," I say, knowing as I say it that it's the one phrase that always makes Katniss see red. "I hurt you."

"That's not you. I know that."

"Oh, who is it, then? Could it be my mother?"

Katniss's mouth opens, but I can see it hit her, this hard truth. The realization that this could be something I've had inside me all along. She shuts her mouth, pressing it into a line.

"It's in my blood, Katniss."

But then she does the scariest thing imaginable. She steps right up to my chest, thrusts her chin up, and demands, "Okay, then. Hit me."

"I'm not going to hit you," I say, taking a step back. "It's not like that."

"Oh?" She steps up again. "Don't have it in you?"

"Don't mock me," I say, stepping back again to find the wall at my heel. Honestly, I tell her one of my darkest fears and Katniss can't even take it seriously.

"I'm not mocking you. I'm just testing a theory. You say it's in your blood. Just do it."

"No! I'm not going to hit you," I repeat. I was insulted before; now anger and fear compound it. Why would she provoke me?

"You sure?" She has me backed against the wall now. "You can do it."

"Are you crazy?"

"Me? I'm not the one having all the breakdowns, am I? I know when a thing is real or not. What about you? Can you be sure what's real? Can you tell the difference between the real me and the mutt?"

"Don't say that." In a moment, I really won't be able to tell the difference. "Shut up - just... just be quiet."

"Ah, I struck a nerve with that," she murmurs. "But I don't feel like being quiet. I feel like talking." Her face is tilted up to mine, her eyes narrowed and sharp. "What do you feel like doing, Peeta?"

"I... I feel..." I stutter, trying to grasp something I want, something that makes sense. "I feel like being alone. I want you to leave."

"What's the matter? Are you afraid for me? Is it because I'm a weak, defenseless girl? Well, guess what: I'm not so defenseless. I had to drag your carcass through two Games and an urban battlefield. Not much of a man, are you? Poor, little baker boy. It's a wonder anyone believed for a second you could have put a bun in my oven."

"Dammit, Katniss," I gasp, "stop! What are you doing?"

"Don't you want to prove you're not so helpless? Doesn't it just kill you that I'm a linchpin for a revolution, and you're just that guy who knocked up the Mockingjay? I think you want to do it. You dream about it, don't you? You want to hurt me so badly, you even think about it in your sleep!"

And there it is, that buzz that comes before the mutts. It's a sound that I can see, pulsing and black. It's a headache like rolling thunder.

Though I can't see her anymore, the moisture of her breath is warm on my lips as she hisses, "Hit me."

All the hair on my body stands on end.

"You need to back off!" I exclaim, twisting myself to force some space between us but refusing to put my hands up. "I _need some space_, Katniss. _Now._"

Thankfully, she heeds my advice and goes quiet. But my heart is pounding already, and the buzzing continues. I find the edge of the counter and, gripping it, I shut my eyes, willing myself to breathe deeply. There are whispers. Crouching down, I rest my head against my elbow where it stretches up before me. With a shaky breath, I ask Katniss to leave.

Hearing nothing in reply, I satisfy myself that she is gone and out of danger. After a while, I can feel my hands again, and the ringing in my ears is a welcome signal that the episode has passed. Still on the ground, I open my eyes and am startled by the kneeling form next to me.

"That was a stupid thing to do," I say when I find my voice.

"You didn't hurt me, Peeta." Her voice is soft. Everything that has just happened makes so much sense and no sense at all.

"You were lucky," I say. But the truth is, I am the lucky one. I would lose my mind if anything happened to her. "Even the doctor said I shouldn't be alone with you."

Her eyes flicker. "Dr. Aurelius said that?"

"You seem surprised." If I didn't feel so drained, I might chuckle.

"It's just... That's not what he said to me at all." She stands up and takes some steps away, then paces back.

"What? What did he say to you?" I ask.

"Why would he say that to you? Are you sure he said that to you? I don't understand." Katniss can't hear me. She keeps asking herself questions while she goes to the door. Leaning back into the kitchen, her forehead creased in confusion, she says, "I'll be back, Peeta." She pauses, walks back to me, crouches down to brush her lips to my cheek. And then she's gone.

I never wanted her to come in in the first place. But now that she has come and gone...

Vera's soft twang comes back to me. _No one should ever have to be alone._

"And please don't stand so close to me  
>I'm having trouble breathing<br>I'm afraid of what you're seeing right now...  
>And I will make sure to keep my distance"<br>- "Distance," Christina Perri with Jason Mraz


	13. Danger

I really don't have words for how ridiculous that wait was, guys, and I'm sorry. Between my beta and me, there were over 5000 miles of travel, dozens of applications going this way and that, school, work, and a little bit of post traumatic stress. Y'all, it was crazyshoes.

Before we hit the road with this chapter, I did want to address something people were mentioning in comments: the Mr. Peeta/Miss Katniss thing is apparently cultural. District 11 a.k.a. "Pectore" is typically mapped in what is currently the American South, where I grew up. We just call everyone Mr. and Miss, as a sign of respect. Best friend's mom? Miss Becky (not Becky, no matter how often she cooks you dinner or you call her "Mom"). Kindergarten teacher? Miss Faye. Grandmother's friend who sings in the church choir? Miss Dot (just like her daughter, Miss Dot). Employer? Mr. Bell. (See what I did there? We're not on a first-name basis with everyone.) In fact, where I live in the Southwest, I am called Miss, and I call the kids I work with Miss (although not Mr. Hmm, double-standard?). Anyway, I just thought some of you might like to know that I didn't make that stuff up for the story; a number of people seemed to think it was really weird.

Okay, so the following applies: all characters and associated material belong to Suzanne Collins and her affiliated agencies. All song lyrics are credited as appropriate. If this chapter is any good at all, please drop your coins into **PPerfect**'s guitar case for her tireless beta skills. Again, we both apologize for the wait, but we're glad you're back!

Here's a nice refresher for you:

* * *

><p><em><strong>Last time, on Smoke Rising...<strong>_

_"You need to back off!" I exclaim, twisting myself to force some space between us but refusing to put my hands up. "I _need some space, _Katniss._ Now_."_

_Thankfully, she heeds my advice and goes quiet. But my heart is pounding already, and the buzzing continues. I find the edge of the counter and, gripping it, I shut my eyes, willing myself to breathe deeply. There are whispers. Crouching down, I rest my head against my elbow where it stretches up before me. With a shaky breath, I ask Katniss to leave._

_Hearing nothing in reply, I satisfy myself that she is gone and out of danger. After a while, I can feel my hands again, and the ringing in my ears is a welcome signal that the episode has passed. Still on the ground, I open my eyes and am startled by the kneeling form next to me._

_"That was a stupid thing to do," I say when I find my voice._

_"You didn't hurt me, Peeta." Her voice is soft. Everything that has just happened makes so much sense and no sense at all._

_"You were lucky," I say. But the truth is, I am the lucky one. I would lose my mind if anything happened to her. "Even the doctor said I shouldn't be alone with you."_

_Her eyes flicker. "Dr. Aurelius said that?"_

_"You seem surprised." If I didn't feel so drained, I might chuckle._

_"It's just... That's not what he said to me at all." She stands up and takes some steps away, then paces back._

_"What? What did he say to you?" I ask._

_"Why would he say that to you? Are you sure he said that to you? I don't understand." Katniss can't hear me. She keeps asking herself questions while she goes to the door. Leaning back into the kitchen, her forehead creased in confusion, she says, "I'll be back, Peeta." She pauses, walks back to me, crouches down to brush her lips to my cheek. And then she's gone._

_I never wanted her to come in in the first place. But now that she has come and gone..._

_Vera's soft twang comes back to me._ No one should ever have to be alone.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Smoke Rising<strong>_** Chapter 13: "Danger"**

"Trying to stop my hands from shakin',  
>Somethin' in my mind's not makin' sense .<br>It's been a while since we were all alone.  
>I can't hide the way I'm feelin'."<br>"Your Love," The Outfield

I'm lying on the couch, because I can't stand to do anything else. Slowly, the light leaves the room until I am lying in the dark, staring blankly at the living room ceiling. The phone rings a few times, but I don't feel like getting up to answer it. Then someone comes to the door, but I just let them knock.

She lets herself in, of course.

"Peeta?" Katniss calls out from the entryway.

"I'm here," I say weakly without sitting up.

I can hear the door creak to a close and footsteps over to the edge of the living room, but no closer. "Are you okay?"

"Just lying down," I answer, because I can't say, "Yes," or even, "I will be," and telling her _no_ will make her think I need a doctor.

She speaks very slowly. "I just wanted to apologize. I thought I was doing the right thing for you. Even so, I knew it would hurt you, and I don't want to do that. I think maybe I misunderstood the whole thing. I don't know anymore."

Is she going somewhere with this? It's hard to focus on what she's saying.

"Maybe it _was_ the right thing," she wavers, "but I shouldn't have just forced it on you."

There is a long pause before she speaks again.

"I thought Dr. Aurelius had said I should do it. We were talking about people facing their fears," she says sheepishly. "I thought we were talking about you."

"Okay, Katniss," I say. I don't have the energy for this.

"We never really talk about you outright. Well, I do, but he doesn't. Since you're his patient. But I thought . . ."

"Yeah," I say. It doesn't really matter anyway. Seeing her there next to me on the floor when I opened my eyes: that made more sense than any explanation ever could. I can't explain it myself; it's just a feeling. Katniss might not know exactly why she did what she did, but, somehow, I feel that I do.

I can hear her swallow, hard, all the way across the room. "Those things I said... I didn't mean them. You know that. Right?" She sounds so small, strained.

"I know." It all goes fuzzy afterward, anyway.

"I just said the first things that came into my mind."

"I know." I've heard worse from her. She just hadn't ever actually said them before – without being shiny.

"I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought if you could see that you wouldn't hurt me, then you wouldn't keep avoiding me." Her voice cracks, and my heart does the same. "But it never feels good, seeing you like that. It's _awful_... knowing that I did that."

I don't have anything to say to this. I don't even know what it was that Katniss saw, other than me blacking out. What could be so bad that remembering makes her talk this way?

Neither of us speaks for a long time. Eventually, Katniss clears her throat.

"Anyway. I just wanted you to know, Peeta... how sorry I am. I _swear -_" She breathes. "I swear I'll never do anything like that again."

* * *

><p>Haymitch shows up in the morning smelling like a saloon.<p>

"I borrowed this." He waves a tool at me. "I'm bringing it back."

I blink. The thing has a long, wooden handle; that much I can figure out. The rest is a misshapen metal fixture and what looks like a non-working hinge. "Are you sure that's mine?" I ask dubiously.

Haymitch studies the tool as if he has only just now noticed he is holding it.

"I don't even know what it is," I say.

Haymitch shrugs. "I was just using it to knock the junk out of my gutters. It worked okay." He hands the tool out again, even though it's probably not mine, and despite the fact that, if I had a need for it, I wouldn't know what it was.

For some reason, I take it.

"Okay... well. Thanks." We just stand there, not saying anything. Haymitch makes no move to come inside, and he's never been one to wait for an invitation. He usually doesn't even wait for someone to answer the door. I fidget with the doorknob, hold a _good bye_ in my mouth.

"She came to see me last night."

"What?" I let go of the doorknob.

Haymitch gives his head an affirmative wobble. "Said she did something stupid." His eyes fix on me and narrow. "She do something stupid?"

With a sigh, I say, "Yes. But I don't want to talk with you about it."

"Fair enough. She's not here now, is she?" It's pretty obvious, the way he's looking over my shoulder.

"No," I answer, losing my patience. "She doesn't hang around here anymore."

"Good plan."

"I know. You agreed with me when I decided on it."

"Did I?" asks Haymitch vaguely. "Huh. Well, it's a good plan. You stick with that." He just stands there.

"Okay. I will. Uh... glad we had this chat."

Just before I decide to close the door, he goes back to talking. "It would just be nice if I could retire, you know? I mean mentoring. The Games are over. It would be really nice if I could stop worrying that the two of you might kill each other. So the two of you..." he puts his hands side-by-side, thumbs pointing outward, then jerks them apart with a raspberry noise, "separate. That's a good idea. So much easier."

"Easier for you, maybe," I snort, grabbing the door again. "Did you need anything else?"

"Well, now, isn't it easier for you? Not having to worry?" His frown is bossy, demanding. It reminds me of someone. For a man who knows what it's like to care for Katniss as I do, it's truly baffling how he could think it would be easy to cut her out of my life. Add Vera's wisdom to the mix, and I have to deal with the prospect of eternal solitude in addition to a future without Katniss in it.

"Easier?" I say bitterly. "No. No, I can't say that this is easier."

He blinks at me. "Hmm," he says. "Oh, yeah. You got that..." flitting his fingers around in the air, "_thing_ going on. I guess going cold turkey would chafe a bit." He hiccups and clutches his belly. "It's a shame we can't just put some guards on you. That'd keep you in line."

"Guards?" I repeat.

"I wouldn't have to worry then, would I?" laughs Haymitch around another hiccup. The smell of liquor comes in with the cold, but I'm distracted by a thought.

The laughter stops when Haymitch notices the look on my face.

"What did I – hic! - just say?"

* * *

><p>Haymitch is the first one who comes along with Katniss when she shows up to my house for work, but Sae is easily our favorite chaperone. She insists on cleaning my house as long as she's over, which I don't think is necessary. At least she asks if there are any rooms I'd like to keep private, and when I tell her the study, she just nods and bustles away.<p>

We keep an irregular schedule for a while. Since we are still getting used to being in the same room together, that is just fine with me, but there are other things that get in the way. For one thing, Katniss has a pretty bad blue spell in February. She won't come over, won't answer her phone, and when I try to pull some answers out of her, she won't say if it's about Prim or her father or something else. I make myself give her the space to work it out herself, and I guess she does; after a few weeks, she starts showing up again, and then it's more regularly than before.

As weeks pass, Katniss observes that I am baking the same things several days a week and suggests that I make things easier on myself by sticking to one item on my menu each day. I protest that that's not how everyone requested their orders, but she insists on at least asking around to see if people would be amenable to that arrangement.

As it turns out, she's right. After some discussion with my neighbors, I find that it is absolutely feasible for me to bake brown breads on Tuesdays, rolls and biscuits on Wednesdays, sweets on Thursdays, and so on. Not only does it make my baking process more streamlined, it actually frees up two whole days each week: Sunday (which surprises me, as pretty much everyone dines together on Sunday) and Monday. I have a real workweek now, complete with a weekend. I feel like I'm running the bakery already.

Speaking of which, as winter melts into a rainy spring, my Mondays and afternoons with Persi's crew have amounted to a completed building. I'm surprised to learn that it belongs to Persi, who becomes the first merchant in town when he brings in seeds and saplings and soil boosters to revive the abused ground of The Pearl. Like me, he reserves certain hours for building and other hours for his personal business, and when he is absent from the work site, Barber is in charge.

We have one more structure to finish before my bakery goes up, and we often discuss my design plans as we work. The more we talk about it, the less I feel like I've made a mistake with the lot I picked. Sure, there's some leveling work ahead of us, and I would have to buy more property to completely fix the washboarding in back, but the fact is that there's nothing to jeopardize my building and I have the means to buy up more land if it comes to that.

"It'll give you more of a backyard, too, for the chilluns," says Randall, "if you decide to put that loft upstairs after all."

I'm sure I don't want to live over the bakery, but it's considerate of Randall to give me the silver lining. The other guys seem to disagree.

As one, every head pops up to attention. Prince looks shocked, James wide-eyed, Barber is so red in the face it makes his coppery hair look brown by comparison. There's a hiss from Mack.

"Aw, hang," mutters Randall. "I ain't supposed to mention that."

Confused, I ask, "What, a yard?"

"You livin' with your wife," he answers. "Every man's home life is his business."

It stings a little. I've been working down here almost every day thinking that they didn't notice Katniss and I had issues, or at least they didn't care. Now I find out that there's some sort of agreement on it.

"You can mention it," I say, a little bristled. "Katniss and I are used to public scrutiny."

Barber shakes his head. "No, we aren't gonna talk about it. Persi said we should leave it alone, and that's what we're gonna do." His eyes bore into Randall, who looks like he may be breaking a sweat.

Of course, Persi knows that things with Katniss and me are complicated. I told Vera, and it's only natural that she would tell her husband. Did he turn around and tell the guys, warning them not to let on that they know? Or did someone talk to him about it, and he shut them down?

"I know if my wife and I had two houses, I'd want to keep one for my own," Randall interjects.

Several of the others shout for him to shut up, but the subject is open now; we may as well discuss it.

"That's not really what it's about," I say. "Things are just very... complicated."

To my surprise, no one presses me for more. Instead, there is a round of laughter.

"Tell me about it!" exclaims James. "You know my wife wouldn't let me into my own bed for two months after we moved here? I still don't know what it was about, but I tell you, it all stopped once I started leaving my dirty clothes in the hamper."

"My wife has threatened to go home to her mother if I comment one more time on her leaving the trash just inside the back door instead of outside," Prince says.

"I dated my wife for nine years before she agreed to marry me," says Mack. "_She_ is a _very_ complicated woman."

"That's right!" says James. "You're still a newlywed!"

"You are?" I ask. This is the first I've heard of it.

Mack looks at the ground and cracks a little smile. "Seven months. We moved here right after the wedding. Her folks think I'm crazy, but it was her idea."

I'm impressed. "Her idea? To move _here_?"

Mack doesn't try to explain it, he just shrugs and gives me a couple nods, the smile still on his lips. They all look happy. Even James, who was first to start venting about his relationship with his wife. These couples fight; they take years to settle down together... It's encouraging. I mean, no one has to deal with exactly the types of things Katniss and I have to overcome, but it seems like everyone has challenges. And on top of that, no one asks me to explain what's going on between Katniss and me.

I don't mind talking about her, really. I wish I could talk about her more, without worrying that it will disillusion the district – or worse, the whole country – but right now, the only people I get to speak freely to about Katniss are Haymitch and the doctor. And they aren't great for conversation. Even when Haymitch is sober, he's just that tiny bit cynical; and Dr. Aurelius... well, he'll listen, but he won't say much about her.

Just like he doesn't say much about me to Katniss. She has to do most of the talking. She said that; didn't she? I don't remember so well.

The point is that my whole life is so fragmented, between what I can remember, and which parts of that were planted during the war, and what the public is supposed to believe, and what is the truth... well, it's exhausting, sorting things out all the time. Would it really be so bad if everyone knew that Katniss and I were acting for the cameras? Or, at least, Katniss was acting. I think.

Like I said: _complicated_.

Although my depression since January is unshakeable, spending chaperoned time with Katniss helps me get over the anxiety that I might suddenly hurt her. I begin to relax around her again, which is a welcome relief, after having been so close to her and moving abruptly to feeling as though I should never see her again. The only problem now is the fact that her new arrangement of my deliveries means she doesn't come over between Saturday and Tuesday. She could - she never needed my baking as an excuse to come visit before - but now it's a little trickier, with the chaperone and everything. Still, it's not as though the people she brings care what we are doing with our time together. Sae spends most of her time bustling about the other rooms, cleaning, folding, and rearranging. If she brings Critter, we have a child to entertain while we work. Haymitch, the few times that he has come over to watch Katniss and me work, immediately made himself comfortable on my couch and went to sleep. For all anyone cares, Katniss and I could be picking daisies.

My only guesses are that either Katniss is deliberately giving me space or she is getting some for herself. Especially with the world thawing out again, I know she wants to have more time for rambles in the woods, and she has always preferred to do that in the morning while I am usually baking.  
>One thing I do know is that she isn't just coming out of a sense of duty. Three days a week, I have nothing for her to do but keep an eye on my timers and stand guard with her dishtowel in case of messes. I would never point this out, of course; I already miss her the two days she's gone.<p>

I feel guilty, somehow, admitting that. Like I shouldn't miss her. I don't deserve to miss her, after what I did. I'm lucky I can get away with seeing her when I do.

And yet... Tuesday is the one morning of the week when it doesn't hurt so much to get out of bed. At least, if it does, I don't notice, because I am so looking forward to seeing Katniss.

_Is that wrong?_ I ask myself as I shower and dress.

_No_, I answer when I open the door and she steps in, smiling and immediately talking about the bread we'll be making and the spring weather coming in and how long my hair is getting already. _There's no way this could be wrong._

"So I was thinking," she says, leaning against the counter in dangerous proximity to a floured board, "we should go out to the woods together when the weather gets warmer. Some Sunday, maybe, when you aren't working." She studies the remaining half of the sweet bun she's been munching for breakfast. "We haven't done anything but work together for a long time."

"You could come over just to come over, you know," I say with a playful nudge at her elbow.

"Oh, I know." Katniss decides to take another bite of the bun. "But I want to be outdoors! Everything is so fresh out there – so alive – and in here it's either the oven or the fireplace and you get so weird about me wandering around the house." She makes a face. "I thought you wouldn't mind the idea. You've gone to the woods with me before."

I wish she hadn't mentioned that about her wandering around the house. It's not that I mind in general, but one time I had to stop her from going into my study, and after that I've felt like I have to keep an eye on her in case she gets any ideas. I don't even let Sae go in there to clean.

"Who would go with us?" I ask. I don't expect her to be able to answer it; I expect her to drop the subject.

Katniss looks at me a little funny, like maybe she's onto me. It is a passive argument, pointing out that we can't go because no one would chaperone in the woods, but I don't want to fight over it unless she's being stubborn. "Why? Who do you want to go?"

"Oh, no one. I just can't imagine Haymitch would want to go to the woods, and Sae can't leave her granddaughter alone that long, and it's a long walk for a little girl."

"Don't you think we could go alone?" Katniss has the strangest look on her face now. It looks like she's smiling and frowning at the same time.

"Why would we suddenly be able to run off to the woods alone when we don't even work in my house alone?"

Katniss simply smiles at me.

And what begins as a pause for her response stretches into a long silence.

Silence.

"Peeta," she says quietly. "Who is serving as our chaperone this morning?"

I try to remember. The room seems so quiet.

When I am unable to answer, Katniss presses on, "And who accompanied me on Saturday?"

Well, let's see... Saturday it was rainy, and Katniss came in already soaked from the short walk. I remember her taking off her boots by the door...

"And whom did I bring on Friday?"

I'm catching on, but I can't believe it. How long has Katniss been coming over by herself without me noticing? I knew Sae was good about being unobtrusive, but I didn't realize Katniss was so sneaky.

Okay, maybe I knew she could be sneaky... but since when is she sneaky around me?

"You promised," I say quietly, trying to quash the anger I feel rippling under my calm surface. "You promised we wouldn't be reckless."

"We're not being reckless. If anything, we're being overly cautious."

"Not anymore," I remind her.

"What exactly do we need a chaperone for? What could Sae possibly do if something came up?"

"It would be two against one."

"Not with her in another room. And anyway, that's not the point." Katniss tilts her head toward me. "You were here for almost a year before you had an episode. It could be another year – or more – before you have another. You might not have one at all. So what are we supposed to do? Have someone in the room with us at all times for the rest of our lives?"

Absurdly, I get a mental image of Katniss, sleeping beside me in my bed, a bassinet at the foot.

"No," I mutter. "Not in the room with us. Just... around..." my voice fades, "in case."

"Listen to me," she says, leaning over to look me in the eye. "We don't need anyone 'just in case.' Look at us. We're fine. You have things under control. I can handle myself." She smirks. "I could take you down if I had to."

To punctuate this statement, she sweeps her foot back under my knee and catches me firmly by the wrist when I start to lose balance.

"See?" she grins. "If anyone here is in any danger, it's you."

I don't argue, and Katniss takes this as me admitting that she's right.

She is. She just doesn't seem to realize how much danger I am in, when it comes to her.

Then again, if the way she holds my arm, just a few seconds too long, means anything... maybe I'm not the only one.

"You're right. I get it.  
>It all makes sense; you're the perfect person,<br>So right, so wrong"  
>- "I Get It," Chevelle<p>

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><p><strong><em>AN_**: Thanks again for reading. I hope you're excited for the next chapter, because Peeta can _finally_ stop agonizing over everything! Yes. It's time. And I promise it won't take two months to post. If I have to, I will give you a half-written chapter! ;)  
>And also, I expect to hit 20,000 views on this story while you are all reading this chapter, so thank you so much for making it a success! Please share freely with your friends, forums, etc. As always, all reviews are welcome - even if you have nothing nice to say.<p> 


	14. Que Sera Sera

Happy 2013, my little cupcakes! I am sorry to have left you on the cooling rack... We have been through this enough times that you know I would never abandon you, but alas, sometimes we encounter some delays. If this bugs the crap out of you, what you can do is bookmark me now and come back in a year or so to see if the story is done, and then you can read it all at once! Instant gratification!

With any luck, you are thinking, "Wait a year? I can hardly wait the 30 or 50 days you take to get this stuff online, gwenniekate!" and if that is the case... ours is a love that knows no bounds. You are amazing.

So who's ready for a little fun with Katniss and Peeta?

Oh wait, first there's that thing: All characters and associated material are the property of Suzanne Collins and her licensed agents, with whom I have no affiliation. All song lyrics are credited to their respective artists. Please raise a Happy New Year glass of something bubbly to my beta, **PPerfect**, who made me fix some stuff that just made this chapter not as good.

* * *

><p><strong>Last time on <em>Smoke Rising<em>...**

_"Listen to me," she says, leaning over to look me in the eye. "We don't need anyone 'just in case.' Look at us. We're fine. You have things under control. I can handle myself." She smirks. "I could take you down if I had to."_

_To punctuate this statement, she sweeps her foot back under my knee and catches me firmly by the wrist when I start to lose balance._

_"See?" she grins. "If anyone here is in any danger, it's you."_

_I don't argue, and Katniss takes this as me admitting that she's right._

_She is. She just doesn't seem to realize how much danger I am in, when it comes to her._

_Then again, if the way she holds my arm, just a few seconds too long, means anything... maybe I'm not the only one._

* * *

><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 14: Que Sera Sera**

"I'm so afraid to love you  
>But more afraid to lose<br>Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose."  
>- "I Will Remember You," Sarah McLachlan<p>

"This is hardly a compromise."

Katniss's footsteps drag unhappily behind me as we start down the grassy slope to town. She wanted me to go to the woods with her, but I told her no. Maybe we don't have to have a chaperone all the time, but running into the woods, just the two of us, so far from help if we needed it . . . well, it just doesn't sound smart.

"You wanted to hang out," I say over my shoulder. "We're alone. We aren't working. What's so bad about this?"

"It's just your delivery circuit!" she complains. "We walk this way every day for work!"

"But we _aren't_-"

"I know we're not!" shouts Katniss. Her boots stomp out a beat as we walk in silence for a moment. She almost runs into me when I stop to face her.

"Do you want to just go home?" I ask.

Fixing me with a cold glare, she answers, "This is nothing like a trip to the woods. You said you would compromise. We're not even alone out here," she glances pointedly over my shoulder toward a door that someone shuts with a bang.

"I'm not ready to-"

I am interrupted by Katniss's exaggerated sigh as she stomps past me and rejoins the gravel path into town.

"I'm just not comfortable going outside the fence, yet," I call after her, but she's gaining distance already. She's mad because I won't do things her way. Still, she's not headed home, so maybe hanging out in town is better than staying in the Village.

I don't catch up to her until I reach my lot. Thankfully, she's stopped walking entirely, or else I never would have caught up.

"You started," she says simply, nodding toward the blank foundation in front of us. Clearly the argument is over.

"Yeah, this week." A surge of pride comes just ahead of Katniss's reassuring smile.

"That's amazing, Peeta. I can't believe you're building your own bakery." She walks to the spot where my front door is going to be and looks over her shoulder. "May I come in?"

I jump at the chance to show her around. There's really nothing to look at yet, but I point out where my counter will be, and where steps are going in to elevate customer seating so that everyone can get a view down into the kitchen. I'm probably talking too much, giving too many details that only matter to me, but Katniss keeps asking questions, and I'm too pumped up about my plans to resist answering them for her sake. After a while, she turns back toward the street, signaling me to wind down my presentation.

"The stairs..." she says mildly, "do they only go to the seating area?"

"Yeah. Well, it's just a few steps up," I answer. "To give the customers a better view."

"But you're sure there isn't another level?"

When I look up at her face, Katniss is still staring at the ground ahead of her, as though she is concerned for her footing where we step down from the foundation.

"You mean a loft?"

She gives her lower lip a quick bite, but no other response.

"No, I haven't changed my mind. It's just the bakery. I'm staying in the Village."

Katniss's mouth twitches, and her fingers find mine. She sighs.

"I'm glad."

I can't speak for Katniss, but I personally think the rest of our walk goes well. After seeing the slab that will become my bakery, we walk out to the Seam and along the fence line, following the outskirts of town until we end up in the thicket behind the Village, and by then the day is half-spent. The only bad thing I can say for it is the demand Katniss places on me, mere minutes from home. It starts with a favor.

"I didn't want to ruin the surprise, but I'm too excited," she says, stepping easily over a tangle of tall grass. "I'm making you a cake!"

I pull myself through the same tangle. "Wow! I didn't know you could bake cakes from scratch!" She hasn't had the best luck with refined flour, after all. She hasn't even eaten that many cakes in her life, let alone had opportunities to cook them. And in my kitchen, she doesn't measure or anything; she's just the mix-in girl and clean-up mistress.

Apparently Katniss suffers from no delusions.

"Oh, I can't," she replies. "But I'm going to try anyway. It occurred to me that we've been here over a year, so you've had at least one birthday, and _birthdays deserve cake_." Her hand, which has been holding mine, to my intense delight, off and on over the past couple of hours, squeezes now as she echoes back some of my old words from almost a year ago.

"What about you?" I ask, smiling and warm. It feels so good to hold her hand and talk about normal, wonderful things. "Your birthday will be here soon. What would you like to do to honor it?" I brace myself for a request to hunt with her, or hike outside the fence, or any number of things I don't want to do and would physically have trouble managing.

"Actually..." she hops up onto a weathered log. "All I want to do is see something."

"Well, that shouldn't be too hard," I say, expecting her to say _You in a tree_ or even _Johanna Mason_, but that just goes to show how badly I read Katniss.

"Your paintings" is what she says, and at that moment we reach the Village, and Katniss moves for her own house as I stand, aghast, in front of mine.

"What was that?" I stammer over the sound of her boots bouncing up her front steps.

"Oh, I just want to see them," she calls over her shoulder. Then she turns around, smiling wickedly, "Unless you want to give me one." And with a shrug, as if to say, _It's up to you_, Katniss disappears happily into her house and I retreat dazedly into mine.

It takes me a while to realize that I have to finish the conversation. Katniss made it sound like the decision was made, but they are my paintings, and I have the right to decide who views them and under what circumstances, birthday or not.

Which is exactly what I tell her when she lets me in. "Besides," I argue, "I don't even know what they are."

"That's okay," she says. "You take a look at them, and just pick out a few for me to look at."

I shake my head hard. "Why aren't you taking me seriously? I just said that I don't want to show you." When I see the little crease forming in Katniss's forehead, I relent a little. "How about I paint something just for you?"

To her credit, she does hesitate before continuing to boss me around. "No, I want to see what you've been working on. And I know you've been working on them; I can smell the paint thinner on you."

"You can?" I had no idea.

"Mmhmm."

How embarrassing.

Katniss studies me for a moment before resorting to pleading. "Surely you have something you can show me. I just want to see what you've been thinking about. I used to get to look at the things you painted, and I miss that. Please?"

My heart tugs, just like she knew it would, and for a second I want to give her a full tour of the basement, but then I start to picture her in a middle of that pile of horror, and again giving her her very own painting – a real one that I've planned, on canvas and everything – just sounds so good. "I could just paint something new and pass it off as something that I had already," I consider.

"Yes," agrees Katniss, "you could, and I would never know. But _you_ would."

Even though I'm not in crisis, Dr. Aurelius kindly returns my hasty call for guidance on the paintings issue.

"The question is: do you want to show her your paintings, Peeta?"

"No," I answer without hesitation. "I don't even look at them. I don't want _her_ to look at them!"

"Well, that is something we have discussed before," he says. "The possibility of you taking a look at what you have produced. If that were something you are still interested in pursuing, it would solve the issue of not knowing what she would see. Who knows, maybe you would find something worth sharing with her. Is that something you are still considering?"

"I don't know." Part of me wants to, out of curiosity, or wanting to get it over with, or maybe that same urge that makes you pick at a scab that you know is not done healing. I want to, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to know what's down there. What if I have a breakdown there in the basement? Would anyone be able to find me if I needed help?

"Well, okay," says the doctor "Contrary to what Katniss may say, there is no time stamp on this. You don't have to do it this week or this month or this year, if you don't want to. I would of course be happy to be on the line with you if you choose to try it, but it's not part of your prescribed treatment plan, so it's really up to you."

"What would you do, if you were me?" I ask. I can't ask if I "should" do it, because either it's part of my treatment, or it would "be good" for me, but Dr. Aurelius prefers to avoid _shoulds_.

"I think I might do it," he says carefully. "I think this is something that could be beneficial to you. It may help you to see what you've been producing, what's been on your mind, if there are memories that you don't consciously access. I think it may help you to face them because these paintings and your memories don't run your life. They're not in control; you are. The old Capitol is not in control of you. The new Columbia is not in control. The media are not in control, and I'm not in control, and these scars that you carry are not in control. Even Katniss Everdeen is not in control of you, Peeta – _you are_. And I think facing these fears you have of what's been lurking inside of you, well, it may just help you face tomorrow, so to speak."

I realize that I have been gnawing on my lip with a sharp taste of blood. He's right about me dreading what I may find out about myself by looking at these paintings, but it's just as he said. Looking at them could be just what I need.

"Okay," I say, a little less sure of myself than my voice lets on. "Let's do it tomorrow."

And so the day arrives that I must face my fears. Watching video clips to fix broken memories is one thing, but picking up full-color fragments from my nightmares is something else entirely. I won't even let myself consider for a moment that I might keep an eye out for something Katniss could see; I'm too busy trying to stay calm.

I skip breakfast, since it would probably just come back up. Likewise, expecting I may stay the rest of the day in bed if I suffer an episode, I skip dressing for the day. Thus, in pajamas and sock feet, I sit by the phone and watch the clock until it is time to call Dr. Aurelius.

We start with some relaxation, and we review a couple of scenarios. I know my way out of the basement with my eyes shut, he reminds me, and he'll be on the phone the whole time.

Before I know it, there's nothing left to go over. It's time to go downstairs and... _que sera sera._

The basement is a mess. Everything is piled up and jammed into spaces, tottering precariously as though they had once been stacked on shelves and, one day, the shelves simply vanished, leaving towers of abandoned screens, fenceposts, and other debris. My paintings.

"Whenever you're ready," says Dr. Aurelius.

_Ready enough,_ I think. _Deep breaths._

Wincing in trepidation, I pull, from a stack of boards, the most-recently painted one and turn it over.

The paint is damaged where it was still wet when I banished the piece to the basement, but the picture is clear and obviously my brush. My stunned silence is broken by the voice in my ear.

"Are you still with me, Peeta?"

"Yes," I say automatically. I blink at the painting. "It's... not of the war."

"Can you tell me about it?"

"It's a room," I answer. "A train compartment, I think. At night." The bed is situated along the wall on the right. By the moonlight beaming through the narrow window, I can make out an arm dangling sleepily from the mattress. I can even recognize the narrow wrist. "It's sort of a nice picture, actually," I admit in surprise.

"Well, see?" asks Dr. Aurelius. "You've had enough time to produce scenes of a little more peaceful nature." When I don't offer more details, he asks, "Do you think you might like to look at another picture? A little farther back, perhaps?"

Tentatively, I agree. It's still harrowing, pulling something at random from the pile of abandoned paintings. I have no idea what I might see when I turn it over.

As I expected, there is a lot of red. But, once the initial jolt is past, I realize that this picture isn't of the war either.

"It's fire." Even as I say it, I realize that I don't have it quite right.

The reds, golds, ambers, even deep blues swirl up like flame, but there is a satiny sheen, a regularity to the fire. A swath of white up in the corner. A streak of velvety black at the bottom. And just behind this curtain of fiery fabric is the astonished, lavender face of Caesar Flickerman.

"It's from the Games," I amend. "The Quarter Quell." There wasn't much fire to speak of in the 75th Games, but Dr. Aurelius doesn't ask me to explain. Instead, he prompts me to tell him how I'm feeling, if I think this means anything, if I'd like to look at more.

Since I am starting to notice a theme with these pictures, I _am_ actually curious to see more. Without caring what I turn over or when I might have painted it, I begin pulling out boards, baskets, bricks... all the junk I've been using – even the canvases I used out of habit when I first returned home.

None of what I find sends me into an episode. A handful of them are from the war – a particularly gruesome Mitchell, hanging in the air like some kind of macabre chandelier, does churn my stomach before I turn away. But those are rare. Again and again, it's wreathes of flowers and circles of gold, bread and rain and burning dresses.

One painting in particular affects me so deeply that I bring it over to the staircase, toying with the idea of taking it upstairs with me. In contrast with most of the other images, this one is almost colorless, and yet it is completely covered in paint. Silvery blues and pale pinks and yellows, cream and ivory and snow white, all radiating from the orb being passed between two hands, each hand a different color of skin. The moment I see it, I feel tingles in my hands and scalp, and my heart stutters.

I thought I couldn't remember the moment captured in this picture, but here it is, from edge to edge on this span of scrap cardboard, produced by my hands – commemorated by the name of our district – the pearl.

I don't want to tell Dr. Aurelius. It's embarrassing that this is what I've been so afraid to see. More than that, it's so painfully personal. I've told him things that made me hot with shame. I've cried in his office and almost passed out with anxiety over the phone.

Yet, this is different. This is the sort of thing someone else should know before the doctor does.

I thank him, hang up, and go get dressed. On the short walk down the street, I try to sort out what I'm going to say, but when the door opens, words just tumble out of my mouth.

"I think I might be in love with Katniss."

Haymitch doesn't even blink. "Of course you are."

"I mean it." I trudge over to Haymitch's table and collapse into a chair. There's an open bottle of wine and some bread that isn't too stale. Haymitch hands me a glass.  
>"I do, too," he says. "I told you before that you loved her."<p>

"I didn't know you meant like this. I thought you meant as a friend."

Splashing the wine into the glass, Haymitch guffaws. "Then why did you deny it? You knew what I was saying. I would never tell you who you're friends with. That's just stupid."

I ignore the proffered wine, setting the glass down. "I thought you meant I shouldn't be afraid of hurting her because that part of me was buried beneath love and friendship."

With a grimace, he says, "Love and friendship? Don't be a sap. I told her you loved her, you knew what I meant, and you took seven months to realize that I'm right. And now you come storming in here, for what?"

"I don't know," I admit. "Advice, I guess."

Haymitch shakes his head. "I don't do advice. You should know that by now." He tosses back his wine like it's liquor and puts the glass down with a thunk.

Of course I won't tell him this, but he is right; I did know that. What I wanted was sympathy from someone who knows the whole mess is an impossibility, and since Haymitch doesn't do sympathy either, I chose to ask for the more practical of the two. Without sympathy or advice, I'm left with frustration. "I just don't understand how I could be in love with her," I complain.

"Me, neither. She's a pain in the -"

"No," I interject with annoyance, "I mean that all got beaten out of me; I was poisoned against her. I _loathed _her. I still see her like that sometimes, you know. A mutt. A trick. How can I be in love with someone I think of that way?"

Haymitch has been studying the chipped surface of his table with open disinterest until this last. At my question, he places his hands flat on the table and looks at me as though he is explaining the painfully obvious. "Look, kid. They took what they could. But it had to be recorded, right? Well, everything she is to you, only part of that is the stuff they had filed away. Everything you had in your head up until the moment you told Panem you loved her – the Capitol never had that. If you loved her then," he jabs his finger at the table and draws it in a line, "you've loved her all along, because all of that stayed with you." He folds his hands behind his head and leans back, shrugging. "Not to mention everything that's happened since."

As Haymitch leans back, he eyes me with great amusement, then skepticism. "You seriously didn't know? With all your little rambles around town and your cooking parties every other day? What did you think was going on between you all this time?"

Unexpectedly, I think of a memory from when I was a child and had come home from school talking about Katniss. My father had pointed her out to me, so I had thought she was a family-wide topic. But my brothers had made fun of me, asking me when she and I were getting married or if I had kissed her yet, and they poked and prodded until I cried. My father found me and coaxed me from under my bed, and when I told him all that had happened, he held me close. "Don't ever," he said, "let anyone make you feel bad for loving somebody."

And I remember Katniss dragging my hijacked shell through the streets and sewers of the Capitol. I'd been on the verge of meltdown the entire time, but even when I was losing it completely, she grabbed me by my bound hands and forced herself into my consciousness.

I remember what Haymitch said in the fall, about the Capitol never taking anything from her, mentally. If I love her despite losing so much to the Capitol's meddling, is there a chance that she loves me too?

She did say that she talks about me with Dr. Aurelius. And there was that whole not-letting-me-ignore-her-after-the-episode thing. She used to let me kiss her when no one was around; we held hands and stood in the snow; if an unexpected face-full of flour isn't flirting, then I really don't know what is.

Then again, it could be that Katniss is just used to flirting with me, left over from our on-camera days. She hasn't been making much of an effort to visit on our days off, until recently, and she hardly visited at all in February.

But holding her hand again as we walked around town... both of us at ease and chatting about little things... I could have done that forever. I even thought she might let me kiss her again if I tried.

Should I have tried? Is it too late? Do I just have everything all wrong? Are we only friends? Or does she love me? Did she ever love me?

I'm not sure. I don't know.

Even so, something is rising in me like mist from the mountainside after a rain, nebulous and billowing and bright.

For the second time today, my thanks flies over my shoulder as I start running, and my feet don't touch the ground until I'm on Katniss's doorstep.

The second she opens the door, I'm inside, advancing on her until I have her pushed up against the wall and my mouth against hers. Without hesitation, her arms wrap around my waist, tight and trusting. It's the first time we've kissed since New Year's Eve, and it feels like fireworks of its own. I vaguely worry that I shouldn't pin her to the wall this way, but for once I let the worry fade in the moment; I have never been less in danger of losing it. I can feel everything with perfect clarity. Her fingers clutch my shirt until the fabric pulls. She tastes salty, and her breathing is uneven and warm on my face. She smells like wood and warm pine needles and just a hint of sweat, and the thought of her being in her element out in the woods and then coming home and letting me kiss her this way feels so wonderful I can hardly stand it.

When I'm afraid the kiss has evolved and is beginning to make decisions for itself, I pull back. I'm speechlessly giddy, sliding my hands down the wall until they rest high on her arms.

"Happy birthday to me," she laughs breathlessly, running her fingers over my shoulders and down to my hips. "Too bad I can't just show up at _your_ house like that without a chaperone or work to do."

"You have an open invitation to my house," I shake my blissfully foggy head. "Anytime. With friends or alone. Just promise me one thing, okay?" I gaze directly into her face until I feel more sober and she nods. "If you ever – _ever_ – think you've caught me seeing something shiny, you have to get out. That's the deal."

She stares at my collar for a while, reaching up to brush off a piece of lint or something. Finally, she looks confidently back at me and, with the determination of a woman who had the idea to begin with, she declares, "I'll take it."

I'm wondering if I can steal another kiss for that when Katniss interrupts my thoughts.

"So, which painting did you bring me?"

"I was the one you always dreamed of,  
>You were the one I tried to draw."<br>- "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room," John Mayer


	15. The Envelope

**_AN:_ **Oh, my little chickadees, how long it has been! I kept trying to make this chapter a long one, and eventually I realized that it's just not. 80% of this has been done for two months and you have just been waiiittinggg for the final slice of this pie. How sad. I'm probably 80% done with Chapter 16, so if I get over my eye strain (!) and Miss PPerfect, my able Beta, stops doing _everyone's job_ at work, then I think you might get a new chapter before 2014! That's hyperbole. Calm down. It could be this month! It could even be this week! But not today. Today it's the envelope.

Congratulations to all of us for being able to say: "Why yes, I love _The Hunger Games_, which stars Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence!" Congrats to her, too, but who are we kidding? She's not reading this!

All characters and associated material belong to Suzanne Collins. Lyrics are credited to their respective artists. PPerfect and I hope you enjoy this tasty, little chapter. If you don't like it, just pick the nuts out and let Calla have them. Happy reading!

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><p><strong><em>Last time, on Smoke Rising...<em>**

_When I'm afraid the kiss has evolved and is beginning to make decisions for itself, I pull back. I'm speechlessly giddy, sliding my hands down the wall until they rest high on her arms._

"_Happy birthday to me," she laughs breathlessly, running her fingers over my shoulders and down to my hips. "Too bad I can't just show up at your house like that without a chaperone or work to do."_

"_You have an open invitation to my house," I shake my blissfully foggy head. "Anytime. With friends or alone. Just promise me one thing, okay?" I gaze directly into her face until I feel more sober and she nods. "If you ever – ever – think you've caught me seeing something shiny, you have to get out. That's the deal."_

_She stares at my collar for a while, reaching up to brush off a piece of lint or something. Finally, she looks confidently back at me and, with the determination of a woman who had the idea to begin with, she declares, "I'll take it."_

_I'm wondering if I can steal another kiss for that when Katniss interrupts my thoughts._

"_So, which painting did you bring me?"_

* * *

><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 15: "The Envelope"**

"I'm sorry I can't help myself, so don't look at me that way.  
>We can't fight gravity on a planet that insists<br>That love is like falling, and falling is like this."  
>- "Falling Is Like This," Ani DiFranco<p>

I can't say that I expected differently, but my relationship with Katniss is unlike any other I've ever had. First and foremost, we already know each other, so there's no pretense, no boasting, no flirty dishonesty in our conversations. If there's something she doesn't know about me, or something I can't recall about her, we simply ask; and, since there are no waters being tested here and we know all of each other's very worst secrets, we answer every question.

We can't go on dates, like young couples used to do. There's no place to go, besides Persi's gardening business and the new lumber and fabric depot. I hope to rectify this with my storefront in town. I imagine Mack and his wife or the Ruths coming in and sitting down with a couple steaming cups and something sweet between them. Of course, it wouldn't be much fun for me and Katniss. Come to think of it, I don't know that Katniss would have liked the kinds of dates I took my old girlfriends on. She's not the window-shopping type.

Then there's the emotional aspect. We don't really have any other options, romantically speaking – and maybe this is just me but, all things considered, I'm too altered by my history with Katniss to see anyone as an option anyway – but we are in no rush to establish romantic rapport. I would be lying if I said this wasn't Katniss's doing. It's pretty clear to me at this point that she's gotten under my skin; it would be hard to peek into my basement and deny that she's on my mind, oh, 23 hours of the day. Yet, Katniss doesn't feel the need to talk about our feelings or moon over each other like sweethearts or see each other every waking moment, or even every day.

Things have definitely changed, though.

The kissing is back. Two, three, five kisses a day, and sometimes they're a little more open, a little longer than they used to be.

She lets me hold her for a while if she's having a bad day, and, as I've mentioned before, she's into hand-holding now, too.

There are some more subtle things, like her finally seeming as comfortable in my house as she is in hers, at times wandering upstairs with no word on what she's doing or request for permission. She got me to rub her shoulders one night to get out a knot she earned while pulling a squirrel from a snare.

The next night, when I shut my eyes and grabbed the edge of a table, she backed up and waited from the safety of the hallway for me to return to reality.

Yes, ours is an unusual relationship, but that's all we're good for anymore. And we're the only ones who can truly understand exactly how unusual the other one is.

Whatever we have, it's real.

* * *

><p>"So, we have three rows with four cookies each," I say, pulling the hot cookie sheet from the oven and placing it before two rapt, little faces. "How many cookies does that make?"<p>

Calla stares intently at the cookie sheet, her lips moving as she counts to herself.

"No, no counting," I warn. "Three times four is...?"

Calla looks at me, her innocent expression going blank as she stops counting and tries to summon an answer.

"Let's start at the beginning. Three times one is..."

"Three."

"Right. And three times two is..."

"Six."

"Yes! Three times – don't touch, Marsh; they're still hot! - Sorry; three times three is..."

"Do I smell chocolate?" calls Katniss from the front door. Marshall scrambles down the rungs of his stool and races into the entryway.

"We're doing cookie math!" exclaims Calla a moment later, as Katniss and Marshall join us in the kitchen.

"Ooh, times or take-aways?" Boosting Marshall back onto his stool, Katniss looks over Calla's shoulder at the tray.

"Times," Calla answers unhappily.

"Ugh! I prefer take-aways."

"Still hot!" I warn as Katniss reaches to decrease our cookies by one. Her hand whips back at the last second, but I'm pretty sure she's only setting an example for the children. Hot cookies are no threat, in her world. Instead, she circles the rest of the island and comes to stand by me.

"Hi," she says softly.

"Hi." I mirror her smile. She looks really nice today. Her hair is up in some kind of high knot and the light blue shirt she has on shows off her bare arms.

"I can't believe you're baking in this heat," she says, pulling a strand of hair off her sticky neck.

"It's not so bad in here," I reply. One nice thing about these Victors' Houses is the Capitol amenities like cool air in July. Katniss fidgets with her hair for a second, trying to get the loose strand to stay with the rest of the knot. I let her try one more time before I reach out and slip the lock under the elastic band that holds everything together.

"Thanks," Katniss murmurs over her shoulder.

"My pleasure," I say.

I'd like to give her a quick squeeze. It's too hot to hold onto her, but all I want is to get my arm around her waist for a second. I almost go for it before I remember that we have an audience.

Katniss follows as my attention swings back to Calla. "What?"

My twinge of irritation melts away when the little girl with the expectant face says dreamily, "I thought you were gonna kiss."

Under a sharp glance from Katniss, I explain, "You know, Calla, grown-ups who are... close... don't just kiss all the time."

"Oh, I know that. Mama and Daddy won't even do it if they know Marshall or me is in the room. But you're not old like them. And we seen you kiss on TV loads of times."

"Well, things were different then. We were afraid we weren't going to have many more chances to kiss each other."

"Oh," she says and lowers her eyes to the cookies again. Katniss and I just have time to exchange a glance before Calla asks, "You were afraid you were gonna die?"

"Marsh," Katniss interjects, "you want to see if we can catch some bugs in the back yard?" That's Katniss. She always had a knack for dodging tough interviews.  
>"Yeah!" beams the five-year-old, hopping down to grab Katniss's hand and trotting outside with her.<p>

I take a seat on the vacant stool beside Calla.

"Is that bad?" she asks once we are alone. "Am I not supposed to ask things like that?"

"No, it's not bad, I just don't think I can answer it for you." Calla's little, worried face fires me with guilt. "It's not that I think you're too young to hear about it, but you are just young enough that your parents still get to decide who you hear it from, and when, and how. Okay?"

"Okay." She pauses. "So what exactly do I need to ask them so I find out what I want to know?"

"Well," I say, "you could ask them why we don't have the Hunger Games anymore."

"I don't really remember the Hungry Games," she admits. "I just remember you and Miss Katniss on TV."

I chuckle wryly, trying to imagine what new world this is, where Katniss and I are known for being "on TV." I say, "Well, we were definitely on TV."

"You remember that time you wouldn't wake up?" Calla asks, happily picking toppings from her cookie. "And she cried and cried?"

I laugh and say, "I can't say that I do."

Her mouth full of pecan, Calla widens her eyes and exclaims, "Or all her dresses! She looked just like a princess!" She sighs then and looks over her shoulder at her brother and Katniss through the glass door to the backyard.

"I remember when we met you," she adds, "and we asked you if Miss Katniss didn't like a lot of people and you said she was nice."

"I said that?"

She nods. "My mom said she reckoned she was just shy." Having eaten all of the nuts, Calla inspects what's left of her cookie then decides to just fit the rest of it in her mouth at once. She gazes wistfully out to the yard again, where bug hunting seems to be going well. I never realized she admired Katniss so. I ask her if she wants to play outside with them, and, after packing up the cooled cookies, I follow.

When Vera arrives later, I warn her that she may get some interesting questions at home. "Once we got to a certain point, I thought maybe you and Persi would want to handle it."

"Yes, thank you. Was she wondering about you and Katniss?"

"That was a bit of it," I nod apologetically. "I've got to hand it to you, though; she seems not to know much about the, uh, tough stuff. She forgot we were even in 'the Hungry Games.'"

"Mm, yes, Persi and I have been trying to save those things for later. They had to watch, same as the rest of us, of course, but they don't remember as much as we feared they would." Her lips press into a gentle smile as she checks over her shoulder, watching the kids skipping down the street. "It's a blessing. They don't have to know until they're ready." She looks back to me. "You get the credit for that, you know."

Katniss, who has been up in my bath washing Marshall's six-legged "fwends" out of her hair, bounds down the stairs in one of my largest shirts, which hangs just long enough on her that I cannot tell if she has anything on beneath it. Vera's face lights up at the sight of her, and she gives me a significant look before greeting Katniss in her own hearty fashion.

Vera checks down the road again. "Sakes, it looks like the kids have quite a lead on me. I'd better run now. So good to see the two of you." Another bright-eyed expression. "Y'all take care. And thank you so much for getting the kids outta the heat for a while. We really appreciate it."

We all wave good bye.

I don't get a moment of quiet, though. Before the door has even clicked shut, Katniss says, "I saw you have my painting up."

"Yes," I say carefully, "I decided to hang the painting that I showed you."

She folds her arms and leans against the doorway to the kitchen. The shirt rides up her legs an inch. "I was kind of hoping you would let me keep it."

"And I was kind of hoping you wouldn't ask."

"Oh, come on! I'm actually _in_ the painting! Surely that means something."

I stare at her, caught between horror and amusement for an instant before succumbing to a snicker. "You have no idea."

"Sure I do," she says, and the horror wavers again. "It means I should get to keep it."

She really has no clue about the hundred-painting salute to her that is going on in my basement. "But it's the moment that named our district," I argue. "I hadn't even realized that I remembered it on any level until I saw the painting. It means a lot to me that it exists, and I like to have the reminder hanging in my sight."

"It could hang at my house. You could come see it whenever you want." Katniss shifts away from the doorframe and wanders into the kitchen, hoisting herself up onto the counter. Where, only an hour before, there were children eating cookies, Katniss's bare thighs rest on the countertop. I know she's doing this on purpose, to torment me and try to get her way. I know it, and still I find it impossible not to look.

I try to remember those legs from the pre-scars days, but only murky glimpses surface. I try to commit the new versions to memory. Olive skin, bony knees, two hands hastily pulling shirttails as low as they will go. I remember that I'm arguing.

"I'm not going to negotiate with you!" I try to sound decided, but Katniss's legs have gotten the better of me, and the effect is ruined with a chuckle. I clear my throat. "It's my painting." _Of the two of us. _"For now."

"For _always_," I declare. "End of discussion."

* * *

><p>I gave it to her after all. I'm glad I did. It looks good here in her living room. "If you don't hurry up, our groceries will spoil before we get them home!"<p>

A few thumps up the stairs and Katniss yells back, "I said, just a minute!"

I visit the pale painting over Katniss's couch a moment longer. I wouldn't have given in if she hadn't mentioned how she kept that pearl, even when I was my worst self, hidden among her things in 13 or kept close in her pocket. She probably only told me to get her way, but even knowing that, I couldn't keep the painting. _She kept the pearl._

When she finally comes thundering down the stairs, we walk up to the train station in the blazing afternoon heat. If I hadn't been working all morning, we could have gone before it got too hot. I guess it was unavoidable; I had to work, and Katniss needs an extra hand with her stuff as we carry our packages back to the Village together. I dash over to my house to drop my packages in the air conditioning, then back to Katniss's. She has left some envelopes on the end of the counter while she crouches on the kitchen floor, wrestling with the packing tape on her supplies.

"Need any help?" I ask, grabbing a pair of kitchen shears.

"No, thanks," says Katniss, but she looks up and takes the scissors anyway.

I don't mean to pry, but I happen to glance at her mail while she is liberating fabric soap and shampoo and a box that looks suspiciously feminine from the package on the floor, and something catches my eye.

_Hawthorne, G._

"Hey," I say, picking up the envelope. "What is this?" I hold it low, where Katniss can see it. She stops her unpacking and takes the letter gingerly in her fingertips. Her eyes dart up to mine as she snips the envelope open before abandoning the scissors and whipping the creased ivory pages out. She scans the letter quickly, frowns, then reads it again more slowly.

"He says he's going to call. Tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow? Really?"

She nods, her eyes still on the letter. "He has a day off."

"It's lucky we picked up your mail, then. Imagine if our deliveries had come Monday instead."

But she's not listening. She just flips and flips the pages, absorbing every word.

I clear my throat. "I uh... I should go put away my supplies, too. They probably need to go in the chiller." I step around her semi-unpacked order. "Call me if you need help with anything."

Without the slightest acknowledgment from her, I let myself out.

The whole thing drives me a little crazy for a while. Why did she become so consumed by the letter? She doesn't still love him, does she? How could she still love him, after who he turned out to be? And where has he been all this time? If he were going to help her, she could have used his friendship a year ago. Even a few months ago. But she's been doing fine, Hawthorne. Why now? And why a phone call? What could they possibly talk about? Oh, souls, what if they start talking on the phone all the time? What if she loves talking to him so much she forgets about everything that's happened, and he moves back here, and I'm back to being the neighbor boy again?

But then my door opens, and Katniss steps in, and she doesn't look glossy-eyed or flushed or anything I would expect from a girl who was awaiting a phone call from a boy she still loves. She looks around at my unpacked box, pulled up by the door, and at me, emptying ingredients into their storage containers.

"You'll come wait with me, won't you? Tomorrow?"

I roll up the flour sack I have just emptied. "Of course." I try not to look her in the eye, in case I look jealous, panicky, too relieved at the invitation.

"Oh, good," she sighs. "I was afraid I'd have to do it alone."

I can only shake my head, because the only thing I can think to say is too corny for a time like this. But when she hugs me, I suppose that I must have said something after all.

You just wait, Gale Hawthorne. You wait and see what this girl wants from you after all this time.

"I been trying to do it right.  
>I been living a lonely life.<br>I been sleepin' here instead.  
>I been sleepin' in my bed."<br>- "Ho Hey," The Lumineers

* * *

><p><strong><em>AN:<em> ** Just a heads-up that, although I have staunchly stuck to one POV (i.e., Peeta's) for this story, we are going to have a brief guest narration next time! Also, it's worth noting that Ani DiFranco, whose lyrics opened our chapter, has a daughter named Petah.


	16. Waited for This

**_AN:  
><em>**You: So, what gives? In March, you said, "Got Chapter 16 right here, brb." It's been two months!

Me: Yeah, I'm sorry. I really did have the chapter mostly done. I sent it off to my beta, PPerfect, and she sent it back, very sweetly telling me, "I have read this before and it wasn't any better this time. Try again."

You: Surely it wasn't that awful.

Me: No, but it wasn't good enough. That's what betas are for - so you don't end up reading crap! Don't worry! This version of the chapter is better. It just had to be written, after I had already said the chapter was almost ready to go. Which was true. It was almost ready to go in the trash. So here it is: the new and improved Chapter 16. I titled it before writing this intro, and now I think the title is a little bit of a joke. :) Enjoy. And please don't hesitate to comment. PPerfect tore me a new one on the first version of this chapter, so I'm quite sure I can take your critique!

Standard disclaimer: Characters and associated material belong to Suzanne Collins and her licensed affiliates. Song lyrics are credited to their respective artists.

PS - As promised, the chapter begins in KPOV.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Last time, on Smoke Rising...<em>**

_The whole thing drives me a little crazy for a while. Why did she become so consumed by the letter? She doesn't still love him, does she? How could she still love him, after who he turned out to be? And where has he been all this time? If he were going to help her, she could have used his friendship a year ago. Even a few months ago. But she's been doing fine, Hawthorne. Why now? And why a phone call? What could they possibly talk about? Oh, souls, what if they start talking on the phone all the time? What if she loves talking to him so much she forgets about everything that's happened, and he moves back here, and I'm back to being the neighbor boy again?_

_But then my door opens, and Katniss steps in, and she doesn't look glossy-eyed or flushed or anything I would expect from a girl who was awaiting a phone call from a boy she still loves. She looks around at my unpacked box, pulled up by the door, and at me, emptying ingredients into their storage containers._

_"You'll come wait with me, won't you? Tomorrow?"_

_I roll up the flour sack I have just emptied. "Of course." I try not to look her in the eye, in case I look jealous, panicky, too relieved at the invitation._

_"Oh, good," she sighs. "I was afraid I'd have to do it alone."_

_I can only shake my head, because the only thing I can think to say is too corny for a time like this. But when she hugs me, I suppose that I must have said something after all._

_You just wait, Gale Hawthorne. You wait and see what this girl wants from you after all this time._

* * *

><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 16: "Waited for This"**

"Drawing pictures of innocent times  
>Can you add color inside these lines?<br>….Don't wanna live in a dream one more day."  
>- "Come Clarity," In Flames<p>

_Saturday holds on like a wounded animal that refuses to die._

_If I could, I would take it out of its misery, but time doesn't relax the way animals do. Rain comes in before dawn and, like the minute hand, it seems to get stuck in place, dragging the whole day down with constant, cool pattering._

_It's hard, with hour after hour of sleepy gray, not to obsess over the phone call. I check that the line is live three or four times and only allow myself to use the downstairs toilet with the door open, because I think I that that will increase my chances of hearing the phone ring, if Gale should happen to call during the two minutes I'm in there._

_It's not that I am that anxious to talk to Gale, really. I forgave him last year for the wrongs I felt he'd done, and in doing so I let go of every pain and every joy he'd ever given me. I would never have believed it, but he's simply not part of my life anymore. He used to be ingrained in my survival, my only friend, more reliable than my own mother when it came to making things work from day to day or talking about the future. There was a time when I wondered if Gale were that future, if he were somehow right for me the way my father was right for my mother. There were times when my heart broke for him, and the only way I could keep myself together was to tell myself that he and I had each other and there was nothing to worry about._

_But I'm no longer worried about survival. _

_If pressed, I would admit that I have a few friends. _

_My mother, while not entirely reliable, does make a point to call on a regular basis, and often she even tells me the things she used to shush to me in my childhood: words about being proud and promises of happy days ahead and one word that I missed desperately for years and years. When she tells me she loves me, I know she needs to hear it back. I know she's having a tough time and she feels alone and she thinks she has failed me and she misses Prim. I don't say it back, though. I don't know what love is anymore, and if I feel it, I don't want to talk about it._

_That's why it works, Peeta and I, not trying to work out what it is that we have. We need each other, not because we aren't strong enough to make it on our own, but because our lives became so fragmented, and we need each other to fill in the missing pieces. I would never be accepted here if it weren't for him. I would be a prisoner, banished to the district, sentenced to life in the Victor's Village. If it weren't for him, the district would have been named something ridiculous, like Miner's Mountain or No Longer Starving, Thank You for Asking. I would have Sae, of course, and her granddaughter, and they would come over like they used to, making sure I was surviving. And Haymitch might come over now and again with a bottle of white liquor, and we might transfer the pain of the night into the hangover of the next day. But I would be alone, really._

_I don't want to think about this anymore. The fact is that Peeta is here, as sure as my right arm and as steady as that mocking clock. I can't survive without him, just like Gale said._

_The letter did say "night," so when the gray daylight finally subsides to gray darkness, Peeta arrives as he promised. I'm sure I can hear my heart thudding throughout the house, but he seems calm. He smiles for me and gives me a peck on the mouth before heading into the kitchen._

_Immediately, I can feel the minute hand move again. The pace of everything begins to flow the way it should. Noises in the kitchen, Peeta's things tossed into a chair... everything seems normal. Except that I'm still waiting on this call._

_Eating dinner, I take small bites so that I can swallow quickly and answer the phone when it rings, but it never does. Peeta tries to make conversation, but everything I say turns into one-word answers, and the conversation falls flat._

_After eating, we settle into the couch to wait. Peeta leans back against the armrest, a sketch book propped up on his knees. It's uncommonly cool for July, with the rain we've had all day, so we have a fire in the fireplace and a couple mugs of cocoa on the coffee table. I try to watch the news, but by the time the late broadcast ends, I realize I have no idea what the headlines were. I guess my mind is elsewhere. Peeta catches me looking at the clock._

"_He didn't say a time in his letter, did he?"_

_I shake my head. It's funny how, when I first learned Gale wanted to talk, I felt no anxiety or excitement, but all this waiting has turned me into a wreck. As the night wears on, nerves on nerves narrow down to one worry: he isn't going to call. My fingernails are driving me crazy; I can't stop picking at them, but I need to – one is starting to bleed. Biting my lip, I cover the blood with my thumb and check the clock again._

_Peeta laughs. "Here," he says, turning sideways so I can see his sketch. "Now help me with this. What should I add?"_

_I peer over his elbow and have to catch my breath. The drawing is beautiful. Two little girls sit in the shade of a thick tree, placing daisy crowns on each other's heads. Daisies grow all around, bouncing in a summer breeze. As I look for any room for improvement, my eyes seem stuck on the little girls. There's something so enchanting about them, as if I recognize them from a fairy tale or something. After a moment, I realize they are Prim and I. Peeta has added a little scar on my arm exactly where my tracking device used to be, and a mockingjay perches in a branch directly over my head. Prim is radiant. Her mouth is open in laughter. Her blond hair surrounds her like a halo. A sudden tear slides down my cheek._

_ Peeta says nothing and instead begins shading the ground, leaving patches of light where sunshine breaks through the boughs above. I lean against his shoulder while he works, letting my eyes wander to the adept motion of his fingers, watching shapes take rise out of blank parchment, but always returning to those two little girls at play in a peaceful field. Sunlight plays on them, and I imagine them laughing for hours among the breeze and the shade of the tree and the dancing daisies._

_ I am awakened by a pain in my neck. We have fallen asleep on the couch. The room is very dimly lit by the glowing coals on the hearth, but I can make out Peeta's sketchpad on the coffee table. Somehow he got a blanket over me, too, even though I'm still against his shoulder. I crane my stiff neck to find the clock and check my vision before I curse under my breath. 4:30. My stirring wakes Peeta, who blinks at me curiously._

_ "We missed it," I tell him gruffly. "It's morning." I pull my body away from his and let the blanket fall to the floor. A lot of good it did me to have him wait with me._

_ "Missed what?" asks Peeta around a tongue thick with sleep._

_ "The call! We slept through it!" Has he forgotten what we were waiting for? I am in such a foul mood that I don't care to stay in the room with him anymore. I stand on wobbly legs and begin to make my way for the stairs up to bed._

_ "Why would he call so late?" Peeta sounds confused._

_ "No, we have been asleep all night," I tell him, letting my annoyance sharpen every word. Peeta frowns at me, trying to shake off the haze of sleep I guess, and I roll my eyes at him before starting up the stairs. Not that he can see it._

_ "But I stayed up till two..."_

_ I stop, whirl around dizzily. "You what?"_

_ "After you fell asleep, I stayed up to make sure you wouldn't miss the call. I didn't think he would call after two..." His face distorts in the dark like he smells something and can't quite figure out what it is. "Why would he call so late?"_

_ My knees go weak and I sink to the floor. Gale wouldn't call that late. I waited, and Peeta waited much longer than I did, and Gale never even called. I'm so exhausted I can't hear my own reaction through the buzzing in my head. I think I am frustrated, and maybe disappointed, but I can't quite tell. I rest my head on my knees and shut my eyes. Sleep is still lurking behind my eyelids; I can feel it trying to relax my muscles. My arm twitches at my side._

_ Arms materialize behind my back and under my knees, carrying me up the stairs. I open my eyes and recognize such a look of sadness on Peeta's face that I have the urge to hug him. When he places me in bed, sliding the covers over me, I slip my arms around his shoulders._

_ "Thank you," I mumble into his neck._

_ "Sweet dreams, Katniss," he says, but I won't let go. I feel so bad to think of him waiting up for my phone call and me being so mean about him falling asleep. And those sad eyes, watching for obstacles as he carried me to bed! Why do I always do this to him? Can't we just be happy for once?_

_ "Stay with me," I whisper. "Really stay."_

_ Peeta goes still. For a second, I am terrified that he will turn and leave without another word. He will go back to his house and be sad all alone, and I will be here worrying about him. He doesn't want to stay. Kissing me every now and then, that's not the same kind of commitment as staying with me to keep bad dreams away. When he pulls back, I let my arms fall from his neck._

_ Tenderly, he touches my cheek and whispers a single word. "Always."_

_ He'll do it! I reach beside me and pull back the covers for him. After a brief pause, Peeta climbs over me and into bed, and I am asleep before I can even wish him sweet dreams._

* * *

><p>I would love to believe that Gale is a jerk and that is why he missed his call, but it turns out he had a pretty good reason.<p>

I am still at Katniss's house when he calls in the morning. The phone ringing actually catches us both still in bed – the latest I've slept restfully in I don't know how long – way past sunrise for a change. Katniss jumps out of bed like she's been caught dozing in the middle of math class - ah, I remember math class - and stumbles for the phone down the hall. I can hear her _yeahs_ and _um-hums_ all right, but after her _It's okay_ I have trouble making out whatever lies Hawthorne is being fed. The call is short, not nearly what she was promised in the letter.

When she returns to the bedroom, she climbs back into bed, pulls the covers up, stuffs a pillow over her face, and sighs in frustration. She drops her hands from the pillow, though, so I reach out and pull it down to her chest, hoping that she'll take this as an invitation to talk. Miraculously, she does.

"He didn't call last night because his girlfriend left him. There was a big fight and she packed up, and he went after her, but she wouldn't see him. It wasn't exactly the right moment to go and make a phone call... right in the middle of being dumped."

Hawthorne has a girlfriend? Er, no. _Had_ a girlfriend.

"Ouch," I say noncommittally.

"I feel bad for him," Katniss says, looking from the ceiling to me. "He said in his letter that he was in love. He was even thinking of starting a family with her." She looks back at the ceiling.

So she knew about this. And she seems okay with it. I suddenly feel so relieved, I have the urge to laugh.

Several moments pass while I rein in my elation. Katniss spends the time staring upward, worrying her lip.

Finally I prod, "How do you feel about that?"

"Truthfully?" She sighs. "It's strange, I guess. I used to think we were so alike, you know? He always had these kids to take care of as long as I've known him. He didn't need a family of his own. He used to be really popular with girls when he was younger, before he and I met, but he never had time for them as long as I knew him. But he makes enough money now, he doesn't have to worry about them anymore. He doesn't have to work long hours like he used to, or poach from the woods. He has free time.

"I never dated, never wanted kids... I related to that side of him. But, you know, I was thinking yesterday how I really don't know him anymore. There's this big thing that got in between us, and it seemed like that sort of betrayal would always be there. And if not betrayal, then doubt, or mistrust. But I came to this point..." She trails off, then looks at me with uncertainty. "After I came back here, I had a really hard time. I had so many feelings about losing Prim, and a lot of those were directed at Gale, and sometimes it hurt so badly that I hated him. The problem was that Gale was just one person caught up in the flood. Everything I directed at him, or Snow, or Coin – it all came back to me. _I_ made choices that put Prim in that place at that time just as much as any of those people, and for every finger I pointed, there were three pointed back at _me_.

"So I had to let go. I had to forgive. I forgave everyone I was blaming. Some days, I forget that, and guilt haunts me until I remember again, but what I'm trying to say is that everything with Gale was set back at zero. I put aside everything about him that I ever thought I understood so that I could get past the betrayal and the anger and the guilt, and what it's become is this total disconnect. I don't hate him; I don't relate to him. I don't _know_ him. I used to, but not anymore."

When she takes a breath and shuts her eyes, I say, "That sounds like it would hurt, though... like your old friend is gone."

Katniss nods slowly. "Like he died a long time ago."

Ouch again. "So he's dead to you?"

"No," she explains, "the old Gale is dead. I don't know this new guy. I wish him well."

I'm not enjoying this conversation as much as I would have expected. I would hate to be Hawthorne right now.

"This new guy... did he say why he wanted to call?"

She opens her eyes and peers at me from the corner of her eye. "He wanted to see how we're doing. He assumed you were here, by the way." At this, her mouth quirks up and mine follows suit.

"I wouldn't be, if it weren't for his girlfriend walking out on him."

Katniss laughs and pulls the pillow from her stomach to behind her head where it belongs.

"Did you tell him that?" I tease.

"No, he was too busy sobbing."

"He wasn't."

"Okay, he wasn't," she confesses. "But who cares what he thinks? You happen to be here now, and I haven't slept like that in ages," she sighs, pulling the covers up to her shoulders.

I can't help but smile. "Me neither." I do sort of want to go back to sleep, but I don't want to push things with this new development. Plus, I'm starving. When I slip quietly from Katniss's bed, she twists to look at me over her shoulder.

"You getting up?"

"Yeah, I thought I'd go and make us some breakfast. You can stay in bed if you want. I'll bring it over when it's done."

"No, that's okay. I sleep better when you're with me; that's all." She says it so casually that it startles me. It's an old fact, one that I don't remember so well, but I recognize it as something that was once established between us. It might be one of those things that confuse me if it weren't so obviously true. Case in point: I didn't wake up to nightmares this morning as I always do.

I slept fully-dressed, so the only matter of business is getting my shoes, which are downstairs by the door.

"You can shower in the guest bath," Katniss says, pulling open her dresser and choosing something red from the back of the drawer.

It's one thing to sleep here, but _showering_? And she's so relaxed about it all, as if I'm a house guest and I need a place to bathe.

"I'll just shower at home," I tell her. "All my things are there anyway."

Katniss nods, shutting a second drawer as I go.

You wouldn't know it was a late night to look at us over breakfast. We're clean and rosy and full of energy. It's amazing what a good night's sleep will do. I'm kind of daydreaming about it. No nightmares. Incredible.

We spend the rest of the day together. The cool front starts to move out, giving us a balmy evening to spend on Katniss's porch with the sounds of summer all around us. Her porch swing faces the front of the neighborhood, and off in the distance we can just make out the shrieks of children playing in the last of the daylight. Katniss leans on my shoulder and breathes in deeply.

"You know, today has been a really good day."

"Yeah," I agree, appreciating the sounds and smells of a summer dusk, the closeness of her, the memory of waking up next to her, and the idea that I could have more mornings like that in my future. "Wait – even with the Gale thing?"

"Oh, definitely," she says with a smile in her voice. "Nothing could have messed this up." She swings her legs to keep us rocking gently.

We're quiet for a long time. Darkness falls around us, and the stars come out to a chorus of crickets and cicadas, and we rock and rock and Katniss rests her head over my heart.

Since we didn't have any lights on when we came outside, we eventually find ourselves relying on the house lights of neighbors down the street. There's not much to see now, anyway, and I don't want to break the spell we've been under by getting up to turn on a light, but I start to worry about how much longer we have. We aren't going to sleep out here in the porch swing.

Katniss turns her face toward mine. "Your heart is speeding up," she says. "Are you thinking about something?"

"Just that I can't see anything anymore, but I'm afraid to get up," I answer.

She murmurs in agreement, placing her ear against my heart again. "It probably is about time to go in."

I sigh.

"But maybe," she continues, "if we don't turn on any lights, we can make it up to bed without making the evening feel like it's over. What do you think?"

"To your bed?" I ask with astonishment.

Katniss sits back. My chest feels cold where she lay.

"You'll stay, won't you?"

"Of course," I reply. "Of course I'll stay."

She's right, too; we can make it up to her bed without losing the magic. I fall asleep to the scent of her hair spread out on the pillow.

* * *

><p>I get caught sneaking into my own house in the morning.<p>

"I wondered when you'd be back," says Sae, shocking me far too much for the pre-shower part of my morning. She's been waiting on my stoop for who knows how long.

"I wanted to ask you to make somethin' for my Critter. Nothin' fancy, just a pretty li'l bite. For her birthday Thursday."

"Sure," I say, climbing my front steps. "Come on in."

Sae takes a minute to gather up her creaky bones and trundle behind me. "Be careful with her." She grunts. By the new tone of her voice, I know she's changed topics to Katniss. "Else, you lack any other girls to have you."

"Now, Sae," I chide with a grin, "don't you know us better than that?"

"Mmhmm, I'm one of the few who knows you well enough to know there weren't no toasting and there weren't no baby and there's reasons you keep to your sep'rate houses." She jerks her head in the direction from where I just came. "Gen'rully."

"And you know that neither she nor I have entertained notions of being with anyone else. There are reasons for that, too."

She gives me the eye. "Hmph."

"There's nothing for you to worry about. Katniss and I aren't doing anything we didn't do in the old days." At least, I'm pretty sure that that's true. "And I'm nothing if not careful with her. You know that."

She says nothing, but as she pulls out a chair at my table, I think I see a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. When she looks at me, the smile is gone and the subject changes to cake.

It doesn't take long to plan out Critter's treat, a strawberry cake with a layer of jam and a dollop of sweet cream on top. Of course Sae wants to pay for it, which I protest strongly on the grounds that Katniss and I both owe her a great deal for how she's taken care of us, but she is quite clear that she intends to pay. Furthermore, in keeping with her "nothing fancy" attitude, Sae repeatedly specifies that it be extremely small - about the size of a petit four - but I would never be able to cut a recipe down that much. She'll just have to accept the smallish cake that she's going to get.

She's been gone for ten or fifteen minutes before I catch sight of my Health and Wellness catalogs on the table by the phone. I didn't even notice her flipping through them, but it looks like a couple of pages have been dog-eared, and the cover is folded back to leave one section open. Curious, I take a closer look at what Sae thought I should see.

"Great," I mutter.

Family Planning.

"If you knew how lonely my life has been  
>And how low I've felt for so long...<br>It feels like home to me."  
>- "Feels Like Home," Randy Newman<p> 


	17. Open

_**AN: ** _Things I've done since last we spoke:

Gone to a special showing of THG that involves comedians talking over the movie (like Mystery Science Theater 3000). Hands-down, the best part was the mouth breathing they did whenever characters had their mouths hanging open. Peeta evidently does it a lot. By the scene where K&P are running for the Cornucopia and the mutts are coming out, his mouth breathing was out of control and Katniss was trying to shut him up. Go ahead and imagine it.

Go on.

...Now wasn't that hilarious?

Read V. Arrow's The Panem Companion: From Mellark Bakery to Mockingjays. Unless I am extremely, extremely mistaken, the author is the fanfic-fabulous _aimmyarrowshigh -_ If you haven't read her fics, stop what you are doing Right! Now! and go read her stuff. Then come back here and catch up. Where was I? Oh - and the guide is thought-provoking, to say the least. It reads like a dissertation, and still I couldn't put it down.

Sent hugs to my faithful beta, PPerfect.

Procrastinated on posting this chapter.

Got contact. (Not contacts. My right eye is the troublemaker.)

Finally decided to post the chapter.

Oh, and I suppose I did some writing in there. Honestly I worked more on figuring out the background for the next chapter than actually writing this one. What's done is done; let's get on with this! I officially disclaim any ownership of The Hunger Games characters and associated material, which are the property of Suzanne Collins and her licensed affiliates and so on and so forth.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Last<strong>** time, on Smoke Rising...**_

_[Sae]'s been gone for ten or fifteen minutes before I catch sight of my Health and Wellness catalogs on the table by the phone. I didn't even notice her flipping through them, but it looks like a couple of pages have been dog-eared, and the cover is folded back to leave one section open. Curious, I take a closer look at what Sae thought I should see._

_"Great," I mutter._

_Family Planning._

* * *

><p><strong><em>Smoke Rising<em> Chapter 17: "Open"**

"I was afraid of the dark  
>But now it's all that I want"<br>- "Daylight," Maroon 5

_Yet._ Such a hopeful word.

"You open yet?" calls Persi, stepping through the staff entrance of my bakery with a chair under each arm.

"How can I be open when you've got every seat in the building in your hands?" I ask from the door to the chiller.  
>"I can put 'em down, but you might want to tell me where."<p>

"Anywhere out front is fine."

"Roger."

When I join Persi, he's already made himself at home in one of the chairs. Beads of sweat drip off the hand he reaches out for the mug of cold water I've brought him.

"It's a lake of fire out there," he says between gulps. "I cannot wait for this summer to end. Has to be the hottest summer ever."

I suspect that August in Persi's old district made this seem like mild spring weather, and I very clearly remember a cold snap only last month, but I say nothing.

"Speaking of ending," he continues, "are you ready to leave the construction business and put your apron back on?"

"I can't believe it. After all this time." I look appreciatively at what we've built.

"Friday."

I nod. "Opening day." With only six days to go, there's still so much to do. We still have to move all of my furniture from Persi's stockroom; I have a repairperson coming to fix a burner in my brand-new oven; I need to do some paint touch-ups and then clean construction dust off of just about everything; and I still haven't received any of my paper products for packaging, or any of my glassware, for that matter. That's not even mentioning all the food items. But, in the worst-case scenario, I can bake in the brick oven, serve drinks in mugs, and let folks take their orders to-go in, I don't know, their bare hands.

"What does Katniss think of the place?" asks Persi.

"She actually hasn't seen it," I admit. "I wanted everything to be perfect before I expect her to love it."

"She'll love it," he says, glancing over his shoulder toward the display case and, behind it, the raised seating area he calls "the catwalk." "And I don't know that it will ever be perfect, once the public starts coming in here, spilling things and scuffing up your floors. What are you waiting for, opening day?"

I sigh. "Pretty much."

With a chortle, Persi shakes his head. "And I'm the lucky son-of-a-gun who gets the preview of the famous bakery."

I shuffle my foot against the black tile, which will need a good polishing before Friday. Before it gets spilled on and scuffed up. "Maybe I should go ahead and show her."

"Damn right," says Persi. "If I had held out on showing Vera till I opened the shop, she would've marched up herself in a blaze of fury."

* * *

><p>On Monday evening, I'm still unpacking cups and napkins when I hear Katniss at the front door.<p>

"Can I come in?" she asks with a hand covering her eyes. "Are you ready for me?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," I reply, coming around the counter. "Go ahead and take a look."

Her hand drops and, as I approach her, she takes in the room. I watch as she notices the gleaming black floor, the mahogany furniture, the deep yellow walls, and the flickering, lantern-style fixtures, which I have dimmed for evening lighting. I notice the exact moment when she recognizes the half-staircase and she follows it to the catwalk.

"May I?" She looks at me for the first time since she walked in.

"Of course." I gesture her to the stairs. "What's mine is yours." I didn't mean to say that, exactly, but Katniss doesn't seem to notice.

Upstairs, Katniss sits down at a table where she can look down into the kitchen. "What's beneath us?" she asks, scanning the stoves and brick oven and rolling shelves.

"Mostly mechanical stuff. Wherever we needed load-bearing supports or awkward spaces like under the stairs, that's where we put our air conditioner and water heater and other things that aren't pretty. There's an access point across from the back door, but it's like a basement in there."

She cranes her neck toward the back. "I really like that I can see down into the kitchen." She flicks her head to the other side, but we can't see into the service counter area from this table, so she stands up. "Show me the rest."

We walk through the public areas, then the service area, then the kitchen. I even show her the restrooms. Her eyes are wide the entire time.

When we have looked at everything – some things more than once – she says, "This is wonderful, Peeta." I flatter myself thinking that she's not just trying to make me feel good. "The district is really lucky to have you." That's a bit much, but I smile anyway.

"Thanks," I say. "We're lucky to have you, too."

Katniss makes a face and turns away. "Well," she says, "are you almost done here? Let's go home."

Katniss's phone starts ringing while we're pulling off our shoes in her entryway. She has her shoes off in plenty of time to answer, but she doesn't, of course. That's something I've noticed since I started staying the night with Katniss – she doesn't answer any phone calls she's not expecting. In fact, I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that she does indeed talk to other people, like her mother and Johanna and Delly. They all have their weekly time slots in which they call and Katniss picks up. If Katniss misses the call for some reason, she expects only Johanna (Tuesday night) to call back, because Johanna is stubborn like that; the others wait until the next week's window of opportunity. I guess Katniss must call Dr. Aurelius herself for appointments, because I've never seen her answer any other calls. Sometimes, like tonight, the phone rings and rings, and Katniss acts like it's not even there. It makes me wonder if Hawthorne had tried calling before the whole phone debacle, which I can thank for my seemingly permanent invitation to sleep over.

To be completely honest, sometimes I do imagine myself thanking him. Spending my nights here is my best development all year.

Reasons Why I Love Sleeping at Katniss's:

I spent my whole life sleeping with two brothers within arm's reach. It feels unnaturally quiet and lonely in my room, in my house, completely alone.

Speaking of which, Katniss smells considerably better than my brothers ever did.

I'm happy when I shut my eyes at night and happy when I open them in the morning.

When Katniss dies in my dreams, I wake to find her whole and healthy, and without obsessing over her safety, I find that I can almost always fall back asleep.

I don't worry about her during the day like I used to, either. I can see for myself that she's taking care of herself, talking to people, and functioning better than I expected. Functioning better than I am, even.

I think Buttercup can sense that I always wanted a pet. (Either that, or he's just thrilled to have someone in the house who isn't Katniss.)

Her towels are softer than mine and her soap has moisturizers in it.

She actually has empty hangers in her closet. (Had. My shirts had to hang _somewhere_.)

But, by far, my favorite thing about sleeping at Katniss's is bedtime.

She asks me every night to stay. At this point, I would stay whether she asked me to or not, but every night, she asks. After that, I go to get ready – washing my face and brushing my teeth and so forth – but she just gets into bed with hardly any process at all. By the time I'm ready, she's changed and under the covers with the lights off.

She likes to talk while we fall asleep.

"Tell me a story," she demands most nights, her voice already slurred with oncoming sleep and muffled by her pillow. "Tell me a story till I fall asleep." Then she takes my arm and pulls it around her, holding my hand near her heart, running her fingers over mine again and again until her breathing grows deeper. I never take my hand back until then.

Sometimes she remembers something precious, like a moment with her father or a conversation she had with Madge back in school, and she tells me about it with as much attention to detail as she can muster with her eyelids already so heavy.

Sometimes she asks about me.

"Peeta," she whispers tonight after I've told her a short story, one with a sweet ending but not long enough to see her to slumber, "can I ask you something?"

"Have I ever answered that question, 'No?'" I answer with a chuckle.

"It's personal."

"Go ahead."

"Have you ever..." She breathes. "Have you been with a girl?"

I didn't see that one coming. Suddenly, I feel like I am lying too close to her. I mean, I always lie this close to her, but should I really? It's awfully intimate. Doesn't she realize how hot it is in here? To think: a minute ago, I was so comfortable I was falling asleep. Now, I'm wide awake. It's a long minute before I realize I haven't answered her yet.

"Yes."

Without hesitation, Katniss asks, "Was it Celie?"

"No," I say again. "I told you we changed our minds, remember?"

"I remember," she says, "but I thought maybe you were lying."

I clear my throat and wince at the loud noise in the darkness. "It was the truth."

"Okay..." I hear the soft, wet sound of her licking her lips. "Who was it, then?"

I hesitate, not just because of how awkward this conversation has become, but because the memory brings me so little pleasure.

"Are you sure you want to talk about this, Katniss?"

"We don't have to. I'm just trying to get to know you."

"I think you know me pretty well," I chuckle. The laughter makes my body shake, bumping against Katniss's back in a way that seems very personal, given the current conversation.

"I'm not surprised. I mean, I always imagined that you had. Especially since you laughed at me before the Quarter Quell for being so 'pure.'"

I try not to laugh again. "I did say that, didn't I?" Another memory to file away in the un-shiny category. "I didn't mean to suggest that I had much experience, though."

She strokes my fingers. "That's okay. So are you going to tell me who it was? Was it someone I knew?"

"No, I don't think so." The heat creeps up over my neck again. Once I get into this, Katniss is going to know how little I thought through my decisions in those days. "It was a girl named Mellia. She was -"

The words stick in my mouth. Souls, how do I explain it?

Katniss shakes my hand impatiently to get my attention. "Well? She was what? Your first love?"  
>"Hardly," I reply drily. "She was Celie's best friend."<p>

"Howcome you didn't tell me before, when we walked through town, like you did with Celie?"

"Mellia was never my girlfriend," I say, embarrassment taking me that last step from probably-sweaty to unquestionably-sweaty and I clear my throat again.

"Oh." Katniss pauses for a moment. "She was after Celie?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't love her?"

"No. It was sort of a ... one-time thing."

Another pause, longer this time. "I don't know how I feel about that. I guess it would be strange to hear that you had been in love with her, but it's pretty strange to know that you weren't and you did it anyway."

_Thanks_, I think.

"Is that even very... Was it... I mean, did you...?"

"Is it any good without love, you mean?" I prompt.

"Yeah."

"I didn't have a terrible time," I say honestly, "but I didn't enjoy it very much, either. It would have been better with – with someone I cared about."

It was Katniss I had thought about after, when I was showering off the scent of Mellia, so proud of myself for having become a man. _Would Katniss Everdeen be able to tell? _I wondered. When I was towelling myself dry, so nervous my mother – or worse, Celie – would find out. _Had I made a mistake?_ When I was trying to fall asleep, my brothers oblivious in their own beds. _What would it feel __like to lie in Katniss's bed?_

It hadn't been a fantasy encounter, but it didn't keep me from trying again. First, it was Ana, who had pulled me behind the school one afternoon to tell me she had heard great things about me. Then Ileana, whose mother would have had a stroke to hear the things that came out of that sweet girl's mouth. The last was an older girl, whose name I didn't even know but who had been at a party at Lyle's and whose breath had smelled like licorice and alcohol and whose dark hair, from behind, had looked like that of a certain girl I'd had a crush on since forever.

I kept trying new girls, girls who were interested in me, girls whom my mother might not have hated on sight, but the same questions always came afterward, as I showered and went to bed. _What would it feel like...?_

Her breathing is easy, now. If she hasn't fallen asleep yet, she will soon. I flip my hand around in hers so I can hold it properly. Little by little, my nerves and embarrassment settle down, and I listen to her soothing, even breaths.

"Katniss," I whisper, not sure if she's still awake. "There were others, too..."

"How many?" She sounds sleepy again.

"Just a few..."

"Hmm," she mumbles, "sum them up for me. I'm falling asleep."

I give her hand a squeeze. "None of them were you."

She doesn't give any indication that she's heard me. Maybe she nodded off. I wouldn't mind if she did; she doesn't really need to know that I think of her that way. She might not let me sleep in her bed anymore if she knew.

Her whisper surprises me.

"I'm happy you're here," she says.

I give her a squeeze around the shoulder. "I am, too."

Her chest moves in and out, gentle and quiet.

"We never did, did we?" It's a question that has plagued me for months and months. Although her line of questioning (and, honestly, all of our interactions since our return to the district) seems to imply we did not, this may be my only chance to ask.

"No," she sighs. "Not yet." Her fingers relax their grip around my hand, and her muscles spasm and relax as she falls asleep.

* * *

><p><em>Yet.<em>

My life becomes so much more complicated with that tiny, hopeful word.

_No, no, _it seems to say, _you haven't been together _yet_... but you will._

Only three letters, but full of possibility. That hint of promise burrows into my brain and starts changing things.

When Katniss climbs out of bed with bare legs, my eyes stick to her thighs while the Yet whispers, _Those will feel nice, once you get to touch them._

And when she pulls my arm around her, pulling me close for a bedtime story, the Yet torments me until I pull my hips back so our bodies are A-line.

And when I wake up, the first thing I do is drown the Yet in a cold shower.

It starts making me doubt things, question things. Like: how can Katniss sleep with my arm around her and kiss me in all her morning-breathed glory and not feel frustrated that that's as far as our intimacy goes? Doesn't she want more? Am I no more than a security blanket to her?

But then I find myself in bed with one arm around her and my hips pulled back to a modest distance, smelling soap on her skin, and the hopeful Yet sounds innocent. _Patience is all you need. Patience, Peeta... Give it time._

Time is all I have anyway. Time, and an arm around Katniss as she falls asleep again while I lie wide awake behind her, replaying for the trillionth time what she said.

_"Not yet." "Not yet." ...Yet._

"Wait  
>Until you're ready...<br>In our beds we're screaming  
>I... I... I... I just want more and more."<br>- "Blood In Your Mouth," Colour Revolt


End file.
